Kaijuce Wingsuit Event: Heuristic Evaluation

I conducted a targeted heuristic analysis to identify usability issues with the wingsuit in The Heist and The Hazardous DLC. To address these issues, I recommended context-sensitive tutorials, clarified event pathways, and balanced difficulty levels. These design improvements helped enhance player engagement and interaction with the wingsuit mechanic, aligning the gameplay with the initial design intentions and improving the overall player experience.

Telemetry showed that players didn't use the wingsuit mechanic in the overworld. This underuse suggested a potential disconnect between the game design intentions and player engagement or understanding. To encourage its use, the Missions team built a 5-sequence event in which players were provided comprehensive in-game onboarding and tutorials to learn its usage during the Heist and The Hazardous DLC release.

We got word from our publisher that players were not engaging with the wingsuit mechanic as intended in the overworld. This underutilization suggested a disconnect between the design, player interaction, or comprehension, prompting the Missions team to develop a 5-sequence event aimed at encouraging its use during the Heist and The Hazardous DLC release.

My goal was to evaluate the default usability of the wingsuit mechanic to enhance the in-game onboarding and tutorial sequences to better facilitate player understanding and engagement. Given the constraints of time and budget, I determined that a targeted heuristic analysis was the most effective approach for identifying usability issues and guiding the necessary design adjustments.

1. I conducted a game genre-specific heuristic analysis in collaboration with a research colleague from GamesLab. This approach ensured a comprehensive evaluation from multiple perspectives.
2. Through our analysis, we uncovered several significant usability challenges: the event's pathway was confusing with no clear endpoint, the difficulty levels spiked unpredictably, the wingsuit mechanics were inconsistently applied, and the instructions provided were too vague.
3. I compiled these insights into a detailed report that outlined the "5 biggest issues" and "5 solid wins," providing specific recommendations for improvement to the product team.

The heuristic analysis illuminated critical design flaws that significantly hindered player engagement and understanding, particularly highlighting the overly complex and unclear pathway, difficulty, mechanics, and instructions.

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The product team quickly implemented the recommended changes, significantly enhancing the player's onboarding experience and overall interaction with the wingsuit mechanic. This swift action resulted in:

• The event pathways being made clear and intuitive, with defined endpoints to guide players.
• Tutorials were seamlessly integrated into the game context, offering players timely and relevant guidance.
• Difficulty progression across the event was smoothed out, providing a more consistent challenge level that ramped up appropriately.

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These improvements led to a more engaging and enjoyable player experience with the wingsuit mechanic, aligning more closely with the original design intentions and encouraging greater utilization in the game's overworld.