A Digital Tool for Increased Usability of Dexterity Style Board Games
Research, Planning and Design
Throughout university I found myself most enjoying modules about user centred design, research and accessibility. After completing two summer intern projects on the topic of board game accessibility, I was drawn to continue this research in my honours project. I decided to create a project focused on board games which make use demanding dexterity and motor skills. I aimed to create a digital tool which would enable those with accessibility issues to take part in playing the game alongside their friends.
I was introduced to this particular game as part of my contribution to the Meeple Like Us website and decided this would be a good game to focus on due to its fun nature, appeal to all ages and ease of learning.
I began my work by researching the level of accessibility that existed in the game. This was achieved by carrying out a pilot study with unexperienced board game players and a playtest with experienced players. Both groups of participants were asked to set up and play the game with no assistance and were asked the same set of questions to follow up their game.
The table to the left contains the feedback gathered during the requirements and initial research stage. The feedback showed that the main issues with the game were concerned with the physical movement of game pieces and general physical ability to play the game with ease. This determined that a digital tool to aid with moving the character in a digital board game environment could be beneficial in addressing the issues that were experienced.
In order to decide the technology to use to create this tool, market research was done to find any similar solutions. The ideas presented in a similar project led me to explore the idea of using a projector as a means to allow players to feel immersed in the game board and more easily see what's happening in the game.
Initially this led me to attempt building the game board in HTML with the idea that the game would be created using an HTML canvas. After some trial and error it began apparent early on that this would be very difficult to make and there weren't many resources to aid with development. I decided at this point to change technology and to develop the game in Unity in C#. This was a completely new language and environment to me however there were a lot more resources and existing APIs that could be made use of. Due to this pivot, I was able to find a method of connecting the game board I had build in Unity to a way of controlling each players individual character on mobile. I saw this as being a potential added benefit as it would mean players wouldn't even need to stand up to take part in the game, adding to it's potential increased usability.
Once the approach had been decided and I'd done some research into what was technically possible, I then set about planning what the experience would be like. This was done by creating a user flow diagram and a storyboard, these can be seen to the left and below.
At the same time I designed what the game would visually look like. This was mostly based off of the physical game however the colours of the characters were altered to be colourblind friendly. This was tested by viewing the character design in a colourblind simulator and ensuring each character was visually unique.
Testing
Following the development of a usable first version of the game. It was then tested to find any potential usability problems. Due to time and participant availability constraints, most participants were fellow students. It was ensured all participants had played the physical game before taking part in the testing session.
3 studies of participants playing the digital game took place to see if there were any trends or recurring suggestions of improvements. In the first study, all 3 groups of participants agreed that the tool had greatly improved usability. It was stated from participants that the digital experience was exciting and more usable whilst retaining the unique qualities of the physical game. A bug was found which was experienced in all 3 studies which was taken note of. The other trending feedback for improvements were changing wall opacity is the character was near as the camera view was obscured by the wall, changing one of the penguin colours as two were very similar and difficult to differentiate and to have a text reminder of who's turn it was as participants often lost track.
These changes were made and a second round of testing was carried out to gain feedback on the changes and to find out if there were any more changes required. In this second study, larger groups were tested on to run the game at full capacity to test the dynamic. Two sessions were held in this study and both were in agreement that the changes had improved the game however the opacity of the walls were now too low and found it difficult to determine their position.
Conclusion
This project proved that digital tools can be used to innovate traditional board games and improve general usability whilst maintaining even unique game aspects. Players found the tool exciting and claimed that they didn't miss the physical board game. This shows how many possibilities there are for innovation in this area.
As this was my first real user-centred design project in which I designed, developed and tested the solution, I feel it was very successful. This experience of rapid testing during the final stages of development is something I have taken with into my current role in order to add value in a quick and agile way.