I came across an article today which grabbed my attention. It was about the design of restaurant menus and the ‘tricks’ used to get you to buy… an interesting intersection between design and psychology. The article relates to the work of William Poundstone, US author of Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It). According to Poundstone, the way particular food items are presented within a menu is a key factor which drives us to buy them. For example, when people open a menu, the first thing they do is look at its upper right-hand corner according to Poundstone. As you’d think, this is the place where restaurants place their highest profit item and one that sets the ‘tone’ of the eatery. According to Poundstone this item, known as an “anchor” is often an expensive item such as a plate of seafood. (And for those familiar with them, eye tracking and usability testing can find similar areas for websites). The article also includes other tasty morsels of information about how are minds are ‘manipulated’ via menu design… sounds like there’s plenty of ‘thought for food’ in that!

Article in The Age: http://bit.ly/b4Mgce
Priceless at Amazon : http://amzn.to/9G0w0H

I recently came across a Microsoft Research report entitled “Being Human” which I thought was worth sharing with you. The report is a result of the “HCI 2020″ conference, held by Microsoft Research in Spain that aimed to answer the question “What will Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) be like in 2020?”. The report explores changes in our world - technologies, people and society, changes in interaction and then presents a view of the future. It will be interesting to see the crossover with these views and what gaming will offer in the future.

Links

Being Human Report Download (PDF 3MB)
Being Human Website http://tiny.cc/ntjaN

Recently organisers of the Funology panel from the SXSW Interactive Festival (USA) contacted me and I was involved in some stimulating discussion about usability as it applied to games and thought it was worth sharing with you. Here’s a shortlist of some resources on game usability and playtesting I forwarded to them.

Heuristic Evaluation for Games:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Resources_and_Information/Documentation/Usability/Games_Usability_Guidelines.xhtml

http://melissafederoff.com/heuristics_usability_games.html

http://friendlymedia.sbrl.rpi.edu/heuristics.pdf

http://www.behavioristics.com/downloads/usingheuristics.pdf

http://www.upasoc.org/upa_publications/jus/2006_february/usability_game_development

Accessibility for Games:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1408/designing_usable_and_accessible_.php?page=1

Playtesting:
http://www.mgsuserresearch.com
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/researching-video

Contextual Inquiry:
http://xeodesign.com

Game Experience:
http://www.agdc.com.au/05presentations/sat_jeff_pobst.ppt

Books:
Game Usability

Funology

Better Game Characters by Design

plus…

Theory of Fun for Game Design

Rules of Play

Art of Game Design

Game Design Workshop

You can find more about the SXSW Interactive Festival, including the Funology Panel at the official site; http://2009.sxsw.com.

Yesterday, at the Advancing your Intranet through Innovation, Collaborative Planning and Communication conference, I ran a workshop that explored some usability fundamentals as part of my current role as Research Manager at UsabilityOne. The relatively small but dynamic and diverse group spent much of their time establishing information architecture through card sorting, developing key performance indicators (KPIs) and usability test tasks, and planning a half-year website project with usability in mind. I always enjoy the experience of running workshops like these, and will be looking forward to the next one.

Card Sorting in Progress

Link
Ark Group Australia: http://www.arkgroupaustralia.com.au/