Auditory and Visual feedback: Impact on player performance and comprehension in First Person Shooters
2024 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
The video game industry has grown rapidly over the past decades, with games in the First Person Shooter genre, such as the Call Of Duty or Battlefield series, usually topping the sales charts every year. However, the current user interface design principles within First Person Shooters has been shown to have problems related to “clutter”, and players have expressed their discontent with overcrowded heads up displays. This study hopes to shed light on how different interface design principles affect both the player's objective performance and subjective experience. In this study, participants were asked to play a custom made game with three different “feedback configurations”. One based on visual elements, one based on auditory elements and one that mixed both elements. Quantitative measurements such as level completion time and the number of collected pickups were tracked in order to observe how or if they were impacted by the feedback configuration. The participants were also asked to reflect on their experience playing with the different configurations, and there was a large consensus among the participants that a feedback configuration based on visual elements was not preferable. Overall the feedback configurations did not have any significant impact on the player performance, however all of the 12 participants preferred either the Mixed or Auditory configuration.
Abstract [sv]
Under de senaste decennierna har spelindustrin växt snabbt, där bland annat spel inom First Person Shooter genren såsom Call of Duty och Battlefield serierna ligger högt upp på topplistorna varje år. Men de nuvarande designprinciperna för användargränssnitt inom “First Person Shooters” har visat sig ha problem relaterade till "clutter", och spelare har uttryckt sitt missnöje med överflödiga heads-up-displayer. Denna studie syftar till att belysa hur olika designprinciper för användargränssnitt påverkar spelarens prestanda och spelupplevelse. I studien spelade deltagarna samma spel med tre olika "feedback-konfigurationer". En baserad på visuella element, en baserad på auditiva element och en som blandade båda elementen. Kvantitativa mätningar såsom speltid och antalet samlade “pickups” utfördes för att se hur och om dessa påverkades av feedback-konfigurationen. Deltagarna ombads också reflektera över sin upplevelse av att spela med de olika konfigurationerna, och det fanns en stor konsensus bland deltagarna att en feedback-konfiguration främst baserad på visuella element inte var att föredra. Övergripande sett hade feedback-konfigurationerna ingen signifikant påverkan på spelprestandan, men alla de 12 deltagarna föredrog antingen den blandade eller auditiva konfigurationen.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024. , p. 18
Series
TRITA-EECS-EX ; 2024:240
Keywords [en]
Heads up Display, User Interface, User Experience, Feedback, Performance, Auditory, Visual
National Category
Computer and Information Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-349960OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-349960DiVA, id: diva2:1881833
Supervisors
Examiners
2024-08-082024-07-032024-08-08Bibliographically approved