A Comparison Study of the Smartphone Gaming Control

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-1-2019

Publication Title

Journal of Usability Studies

Volume

14

Issue

4

First page number:

201

Last page number:

223

Abstract

Digital technologies have changed human behavior, especially the characteristics of products and their functionalities related to interface and interaction. Smartphone users had to accept touchscreen interfaces without sufficient evidence of the effectiveness of these digital interfaces over physical analog interfaces. Moreover, smartphone gaming industries have introduced mobile games with touch-based interfaces that may or may not be effective for game users. This study aims to find empirical evidence for the effectiveness between analog and digital interfaces for smartphone game controls through two usability tests: (a) a pilot study to compare the data values between direct and indirect input control with six participants and (b) a main study to investigate the effects of tap-only afford between digital and analog input control from the results of the pilot study. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to analyze the usability test. A total of 81 participants were enrolled in the main study and divided into two large groups to compare one-handed and two-handed input controls. Nine participants in each group played smartphone games that were based on different input control tasks. This study found that direct touchscreen interaction was more effective for two-handed input control tasks and indirect physical input control was more effective for one-handed input control tasks.

Keywords

Smartphone game; Gaming interface usability; User experience

Disciplines

Game Design | Industrial and Product Design

Language

English


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