Usability Evaluation of Word Wars

 By Rohan Sood

Introduction

Since 2015, the gaming industry has experienced exponential growth, predominantly driven by the Mobile Gaming. Estimates suggest that around 2.7 billion people have engaged in mobile games at least once. The reason for the increasing popularity and higher number of users of mobile games compared to traditional games comes down to accessibility. Traditional games require certain equipment such as a computer or a gaming console, which act as a barrier to entry to the market. Internet and smartphones have become an essential part of our lives, and hence most people already have the basic necessities for playing a mobile game. AppAnnie data reveals that there are presently over 700,000 mobile games accessible on both iOS and Android platforms. One such game is Word Wars.

Word Wars is a PvP (Player vs Player) turn-based mobile Scrabble game designed to provide an engaging wordplay experience for users. The game is available in English and Based on data by AppAnnie the user base is primarily middle-aged women. Some similar games of the genre would be Words with Friends 2 and Scrabble Go.

Approach Taken for Evaluation

I used two methods to test the user experience and come up with a list of issues in the game: User Think Aloud Sessions and Heuristic Evaluation. For the heuristic evaluation, a combination of Nielsen’s heuristics and some heuristics designed specifically for mobile games were used. For the aloud session, I  gave the participants five tasks to complete and observed their behavior and gameplay throughout the session. The tasks given were:

1. Play a move.
2. Start a new game.
3. Learn about powerups.
4. Guess what the different buttons on the gameboard do.
5. Discover the store screen and quests.

Problems and Recommendations

Some of the key issues discovered using the above two methods are given below

·   No Progress meter on the loading Screen

The loading screen was a blank screen with the company logo without any progress meter as seen in Figure 1. A loading time of 25 seconds on launch without a progress meter made it feel like it was stuck. The issue violates the heuristics Visibility of system status and game usability heuristic Feedback should be present, and was also faced by a tester who felt that the game had hung.

 Figure 1: Loading Screen

Recommendation:

Adding a progress meter at the bottom would alleviate the issue. The progress meter could be either a progress bar or a 4-dot loading screen animation giving the sense that the screen is active. A shine animation on the progress meter also helps users see that the application is active is loading is taking too long when the progress meter is not moving.

·   Lack of Tutorials

A number of elements are continuously added to the game without any explanation as to what they are and what is special about them or how to interact with them. This leads to confusion and loss of interest. These elements are fun additions to the game but due to the lack of a proper introduction or a tutorial, they are never discovered by new users. This violates a gameplay heuristic; The first-time experience is encouraging. A few examples of cases that require tutorial are:-

1. Powerups: The testers were not able to discover the powerups until a task to discover them was given after which a considerable time was spent trying to understand them. The testers were shocked to find out that long tapping on a powerup icon explains the respective powerup. Powerups are an essential component of the game and would have remained undiscovered for some time due to the lack of an introduction/tutorial.
2.  Blank tiles also known as joker tiles are not explained. These tiles can be used in place of any tile to form a word but do not have a score associated with them.
3.  No introduction of the leaderboard given it just started in the background after the testers crossed a move-based threshold.
4.  Scoring Logic: Scrabble scoring knowledge is not straightforward and the game assumes a prior knowledge of Scrabble when playing the game hence making it difficult for people who are not familiar with Scrabble.

Recommendation:

An interactive contextual tutorial can be developed to guide users through the game's rules and gameplay. Carefully planning the introduction of new elements such that it does not appear forced or hinder gameplay would be important while designing the tutorial.

·   Rewards not proportionate to effort

Since Word Wars is an asynchronous turn-based game that allows each player up to 7 days to respond (average response rate is around 1 hour based on data from AppAnnie) to the opponent's move and an average game lasts anywhere between 20-25 moves, each game lasts an average of 1-2 days. The reward for winning a game that lasts for upwards of a day is 4 coins which is not motivating enough. The cheapest powerup costs 30 coins. Since the gameplay is the main aspect of the game, motivating rewards are important to keep the players engaged. There are other ways to earn coins in the game such as the daily login reward which offers increasing rewards for each day the user plays continuously. This issue violates the gameplay heuristic: The players are rewarded and rewards are meaningful.

Recommendation:

Rebalance the game economy to increase the game win reward. Game economy balancing is a complex endeavor and simply increasing the reward may not be possible hence a deeper look into the same would help improve the game.

·   High Frequency of system-triggered modal dialogs

Modal dialogs are dialogs that require a certain action to be done by the user and cannot be simply ignored. The game has a lot of modal dialogs that constantly interrupt gameplay making players confused and lose focus. There is a modal dialog every time the home screen is opened for at least the first 3 views. Examples of a few modal dialogs are the daily login reward and ad-free offer dialog. (Figure 2). This issue violates the gameplay heuristic: The player is in control.

Figure 2: Examples of Modal dialogs

Recommendation:

Creating documentation of all modal dialogs present if not already there with all their respective trigger conditions would help organize the existing dialogs and will help identify dialogs that have similar trigger conditions and hence are triggered close to one another. Updating the trigger logic to space out the dialogs better would help solve the issue. Also, a closer look should be taken to remove any unnecessary modal dialogs or modal dialogs that can be converted to non-modal dialogs.

·   Inconsistent Design

Different UI styles have been used throughout the game. Different shadows used in the start screen make it confusing which elements are tappable buttons and which are display banners. Consistency and Standard is a basic yet extremely important qualities of any application. A game should be easily distinguishable based on their unique design style, this also helps in building brand recognition (all games under a single gaming studio may have some distinct elements). Different styles confuse the users and also break the aesthetics of a game. A few examples of different UI styles used are given in Figure 3.

   

Figure 3: Examples of different UI styles used.

 

Recommendation:

A thorough UI review of all the game screens and elements is needed. The UI/UX team needs to come up with a UI guideline that can be used to revamp the game UI to bring consistency. The guideline will not only help improve the existing UI but also help make sure the consistency is maintained through future versions even if the design team changes.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we discussed a few issues identified in the game Word Wars through the combined use of heuristics and Think-aloud sessions. A total of 15 problems were found of which key problems have been described in this post. There were a few recurring issues throughout the game such as frequency and abruptness of interruptions such as modal dialogs and advertisements, a need for contextual tutorials, and the lack of consistency in UI elements. Addressing these problems will be crucial to enhance the usability of the game and make it more user-friendly. The findings from this evaluation not only serve as valuable feedback for developers but also underscore the importance of continuously improving and enhancing user experiences in the ever-expanding world of gaming. Whether you're a seasoned word game enthusiast or a casual player, the insights gained from this evaluation contribute to the ongoing dialogue about creating games that are not just entertaining but also accessible and enjoyable for a diverse audience.