SOE Usability Lab offers a range of user-centric services to developers
Sony Online Entertainment is opening its usability testing services to external developers and studios.
Usability testing is the practice of placing target audiences in front of games – in a controlled environment – and seeking their feedback on the play experience itself.
Some developers believe the service can notably improve a game's critical reception.
Usability testing is not seeking to eliminate bugs, but instead rid the hurdles of gameplay that may be found in GUI, HUD, navigation, control layouts, and in-game tutorials.
The SOE Usability Lab, based in California, features high-end PCs as well as PS3 test kits. As well as usability testing services, the studio will offer heuristic evaluations services, focus group services and product evaluations.
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“By opening the doors to the Usability Lab we are able to share our industry expertise with other development companies, while offering a cost effective way to test their products and services prior to launch,” said Paul Venuti, SOE’s director of development services.
"New product development lends itself to a host of potential obstacles, many of which could be overcome with preemptive testing," he added.
The lab was first used to apply usability test to Free Realms, SOE’s MMO title that has over five million registered users.
Vertical Slice offer similar services in the UK. The linked article refers to a presentation that Jason Avent from Black Rock and Graham McAllister from Vertical Slice gave at the Develop conference in Brighton earlier this year.
Sony and Vertical Slice also gave talks about usability and other games research techniques such as biometrics, sequential analysis, and review prediction at a recent UXBri event.
See the blog here for more info on all of these topics,
http://www.verticalslice.co.uk/
