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CS6021 - Foundations of Interactive Media – Usability Project
Report Overview
This report hopes to assess the usability and design of the Nokia N-Gage game deck, and to
highlight any problems that any potential user would face when first introduced to the system.
The study was conducted with 5 potential users, with one user being used for a pilot study and the
other 4 being used in the main study. The pilot study was run first as a trial run of the evaluation
procedure, in order to iron out any potential problems and to insure that when conducting the main
evaluations the examination team would know what to do.
The evaluation used the thinking out loud method, where each user would describe verbally what
they were doing at each stage of the study. This method provides the best indication of the thought
process of the user and the mental mapping that takes place between what the user wishes to
achieve and how they believe they can achieve it. Each user was asked to perform a number of tasks
with the N-Gage, and the examiners observed the user. The users were give general goals to achieve
rather than tasks that related directly to the N-Gage system.
Each evaluation was video tapes, allowing the examiners to have a record of exactly what each user
did, and, thanks to the thinking out loud method, why they did it. These tapes were examined in
detail to determine the areas that the user had trouble in.
A list of problem design and interface features was drawn up, and potential solutions to the
problems were suggested.
M.Sc. Interactive Media, University of Limerick, 2003
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