Nintendo Switch

Game Recommendation Feature

The Purpose of Study

The goal of this research study is to find the parts of the game recommendation feature provided by Nintendo Switch technology to be changed or developed in order to improve the collaboration between all generations of people, especially for the old generation. We decided to design the game recommendation feature. And continuously questioning “What features of game recommended provided by Nintendo require improvement?” and "How game recommendation features can be developed that users will be satisfied with?"

Persona

Our target persona, Mary Henderson” is 70 years old women who has grandchildren. She wants to build strong relationships with her grandchildren by playing Nintendo games. However, she is unfamiliar with using this Nintendo Switch technology and using complex technology. Also, she is mostly having a hard time choosing the games that are suitable for both her and her grandchildren.

Figure 1: Target user persona

Figure 2. Nintendo Switch Player Journey Map (used Figma)

Scenario

My grandson who is 11 years old visited me, and I want to play Nintendo games with my grandson. However, I don't know what game we can play together. I want to choose a game that both of us can enjoy playing together, also I want games that are less violent and sexual but still active. So, I opened the game recommendation page to find out the game that we both can play and enjoy and also can improve our relationship.

I want to enter the preferred genres of the game to the device (as a checklist), also I want to be able to have an option to combine other user’s preferences to my preference checklist so that I can get a recommended game list that matches all the players' preferences. So for now, I want to add my grandson’s preferences to my preference checklist so that we get a list of games that are based on our preferences. After I get a list, I want to select one of the games from the list so that my grandson and I can play the game right away.

Figure 3. Game Recommendation Storyboard (Used StoryboardThat )

Research Process

Description of the Usability Test

Our group used a usability test with an interactive prototype for this research study. Here is a link for our interactive prototype: Our Prototype

Figure 2 Flow of the interactive prototype

Session

All of our group members politely asked and invited 4 participants to do our test, and we all informed them what our usability test is about and how their experiences would be used in our project.

Participants

Participant 1 (female, 65 years old): Have experience with Nintendo switch.
Participant 2 (female, 70 years old): never uses a Nintendo switch.
Participant 3 (male 60 years old): never uses a Nintendo switch.
Participant 4 (male, 23 years old): Always plays a Nintendo switch.

The reason why we select these participants is that they are mostly in the age of our target users (old generations of people). Also, since all of the participants are related or close to our group members, it was easy to ask for being a participant and do in-person sessions of the usability test.

In-person usability test session

The in-person sessions could help us to observe participants’ behaviors and actual reactions. Each test session has been taken for 15 minutes with each participant. Each team member conducted each test session. Our research was conducted in-person using an interactive prototype website, Figma. Link We used a laptop and opened the prototype on the website. We sat next to the participants and observed them. We also set a timer for collecting quantitative data from our participants such as completion time for each task.

Figure 3 The prototype of Game Recommended Page

Tasks and interview questions

We created 3 tasks that we want participants to complete. The goal of these 3 tasks is to observe how our participants find and use our game recommended page and if there is any trouble when participants do these tasks. Below are 3 task that we created:

Task 1

Log in to the account
Find the user’s profile page
Find the game recommendation page
Click on the game you want to play

Task 2

Go back to user’s profile page
Find the game recommendation page
Click on the 2 genres in the list you want to play
Click on the game you want to play

Task 3

Go back to user’s profile page
Find the game recommendation page
Click on the 3 genres in the list you want to play
Click on the game you want to play

For the first task, we mainly want to observe participants how to find the game recommended page, and the second and third are how to use the game recommended page to choose the game they like. The difference between second and third is that second is click on 2 games types and third is choose 3 game types.

Interview Questions

When do you usually play Nintendo Switch games during the day?
How often do you play Nintendo Switch per week?
If you play with other players, who do you usually play with?

The purpose of these 3 interview questions is that we want to understand when and how our participants often play Nintendo Switch and who the persons that our participants usually play with.

Data Analysis

Our team collected both qualitative and quantitative data and analyze those data. We analyzed the qualitative data such as Answers for the interview questions, behaviors when doing the tasks, and feedback from the participants, so we were able to get the detail of information such as what the design of the interface is hard for target users to use or see and what aspect of the product should we improve so we can help target user easily to use. Also, we used Quantitative data to support our analysis of qualitative data. Based on the completion time, success rate, and satisfaction rate, we can know how long the participants need to take to complete the tasks, we can assume which task is hard for our participants to complete a long time, also we can know how they satisfy our product by using the numerical values.

Qualitative Data

Answers for the interview questions
Observation participants’ behaviors
Feedback

Quantitative Data

Completion time
Success Rate
Satisfaction Rate

Result

After the usability testing, we observed some problems using our design of the game recommendation feature. Since most of our old generation is not familiar with Nintendo Switch, they are a hard time finding the user page, game recommended page, and the way to go back to the previous page. Also, we found that we need to make the font and size of the picture bigger for users. Our design of the game recommended page was not clear and easy for users to use. However, our participants thought that our game recommended feature is helpful for them.

In conclusion, we found that we need to change some parts of the game recommended design. For example, we need to add the reset function to the game recommended page, and it can help users reset all the game genres at one click instead of unchecking them. Also, we need to change the fonts and size of words on the game recommended page, and it can help our target user read the page. Moreover, our team plan to provide clear instructions or help on this feature, so it's able to guide and help our target user to use this game recommended feature.

Next Step

After conducting the usability study, we got reflections and results for our game recommended page. Also, we got positive reflections from our participants. They thought that the game recommendation feature is helpful. We decided to keep updating and fixing our design of the game recommended page.

My Reflection

I did this research study in school with a group. It was an interesting topic to explore because there is seldom game technology considered old generation users. It is a helpful function for helping old generation users to play a Nintendo Switch. Moreover, by conducting this research study, I learned how to make research questions, plan the usability study, make a prototype by using Figma, conduct a usability study, collect and analyze data, and collaborate with group members. This study brought me more interest in the UCD area.