Jogabilidade versus usabilidade: aplicações em jogos de tiro em primeira pessoa para computador

Abstract

Evaluating the quality of interaction with digital games has been a hard task. This is due mainly to the unawareness of proper tools and criteria or to its inappropriate application. The usability methods, for instance, are often used for the analysis of applications aiming productivity. Nevertheless, they are not established regarding the evaluation of interaction with videogames, which are developed to help players to have fun. Another tool adopted to measure the quality of interaction with other digital games is the playability. However, the unawareness of its evaluation criteria makes this method even less explored. So, we propose on this work to discuss the relations between playability and usability in digital games, trying to identify characteristics and concerns in every technique regarding design and evaluation of videogames. To cover up such questions, we weaved dialogues with game researchers as Jesper Juul, Katie Salen and Erick Zimmerman; scholars of topics related to fun and entertainment, as Nicole Lazzaro, Donald Norman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; besides researchers in the field of playability, as Carlo Fabricattore and Aki Jarvinen; and of the usability, like Katherine Isbister, Noah Schaffer and Sauli Laitinen. The knowledge of the topics discussed by these authors led us to adopt the application of usability and playability heuristics as research methodology, with the first person shooting games for computers as gender and study platform. Through this approach it was possible tot identify the observation needs concerning kinds of interaction problems before choosing the evaluation method (playability and usability) that will be used. By doing so, the measurement of the interaction quality will be more accurate and will contribute to the project of games able to keep players emotionally evolved. Considering the few literature about playability and usability in digital games, it is expected that this work help professionals and researchers in the designing and evaluating processes of videogames