Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools

Where to buy

Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools can be purchased at:

Reviews

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"You make game tools. You want to get better at it. This book will make you better at it. You'll see your software and your processes in a whole new light. Buy it, expense it, read it, give it to your coworkers."

Eric Carter

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Great summary of every mainstream UX book you could be reading. It's definitely a must read if you're interested in UX."

NeoTeNu

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Awesome book, loved it."

Mattd1980

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"We regularly reference the information in this book at our studio. It has been an excellent resource for helping developers without a UX background understand how to integrate UX practices into their work."

LTD

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"A really nice introduction to an area that is often overlooked by game developers. David Lightbown outlines why he believes the industry needs to improve the user experience of its tools, with some convincing arguments on why it would be beneficial. He also provides a solid introduction to User Centered Design, equipping novices with a process and a variety of approaches to solving specific problems. Definitely recommended for those with an interest in this niche topic."

Jonathon

Thank you to UI Review for this review of the book.

Videos

Paulina Morrisson-Fell gave a presentation about the book at a Wargaming.net Sydney Meetup.

Robin-Yann Storm mentioned the book in their GDC 2017 talk at the 22 minute mark.

Photos

Images of the book in the wild.

Citations

Here is a list of books and research papers that have cited the book.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.1201/9781315154725/gamer-brain-celia-hodent

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1155/2018/9085179

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3555858.3555867

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541931213601320

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/36637/

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-40612-1_4

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58625-0_17

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-39952-2_6

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58625-0_16

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HAXDDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA145&ots=ny-j7_OB5e&sig=_czC9lwtYa6_x9XZ2KcsjiXKMBU&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://penerbit.stekom.ac.id/index.php/yayasanpat/article/view/304

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PwMtDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA39&ots=MP6iCUA1IX&sig=zxg24g3jul0tj3jsEMcWtcxP0UY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://j-ptiik.ub.ac.id/index.php/j-ptiik/article/view/8447

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-90176-9_59

https://odr.chalmers.se/items/7af5f329-1035-4383-b0e4-7ff6ef359ba4

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TxY6EAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA183&ots=BmtIEUW0hJ&sig=-chM2NWMH_HCDDZE454SDHs7KBs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1433725&dswid=7303

https://repository.its.ac.id/80120/1/07311640000041_Undergraduate_Thesis.pdf

https://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/handle/123456789/65644

https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/projetica/article/view/42627

https://eprints.uty.ac.id/5741/1/Naskah%20Publikasi%205140411386%20Mochamad%20Hafidz%20Faturochman.pdf

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/170212/Emil_Dewald.pdf?sequence=2

https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?id=102656

https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/kurgu/issue/59637/859466

Works Cited and Recommended Reading

Here are direct links to the Works Cited and Recommended Reading section from the book.

Adlin, Tamara, and John Pruitt. The Essential Persona Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building and Using Personas. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2010.

Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Anderson, Jonathan, John McRee, Robb Wilson, et al. Effective UI. Beijing: O’Reily, 2010.

Buxton, William. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann, 2007.

Cooper, Alan. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Indianapolis, IN: Sams, 1999

Cooper, Alan, Robert Reimann, and Dave Cronin. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Pub., 2007.

Gamma, Erich, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison- Wesley, 1995.

Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. New York: Little Brown & Company, 2013.

Gothelf, Jeff, and Josh Seiden. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reily Media, 2013.

Hawkins, Jeff, and Sandra Blakeslee. On Intelligence. New York: Times Books, 2004.

Hiltzik, Michael A. Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age. New York: HarperBusiness, 1999.

Johnson, Jeff. Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules. Amsterdam: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers / Elsevier, 2010.

Krug, Steve. Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: New Riders Pub., 2006.

McConnel , Steve. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction. 2nd ed. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 2004.

Myers, Brad A. “The Importance of Percent- Done Progress Indicators for Computer– Human Interfaces.” ACM SIGCHI Bul etin 16, no. 4 (1985): 11–17.153

Nielsen, Jakob. “First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users.” Nielsen Norman Group. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users/ (accessed July 15, 2014).

Nielsen, Jakob. “Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users.” Nielsen Norman Group. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users (accessed July 15, 2014).

Nielsen, Jakob. “Response Time Limits.” Nielsen Norman Group. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-limits/ (accessed July 15, 2014). Nielsen, Jakob. Usability Engineering. Boston: Academic Press, 1993.

Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Portigal, Steve. Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compeling Insights. Brooklyn, NY: Rosenfeld Media, 2013.

Saffer, Dan. Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2010.

Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N. “Converging Perspectives: Product Development Research for the 1990s.” Design Management Journal (Former Series) 3, no. 4 (1992): 49–54.

Suchman, Lucille Alice. Human–Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Sy, Desiree. “Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-Centered Design.” Journal of Usability Studies 2, no. 3 (May 2007), 112–132. (Available at http://uxpajournal.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/agile-ucd.pdf)

Vlaskovits, Patrick. “Henry Ford, Innovation, and That ‘Faster Horse’ Quote.” Harvard Business Review. http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast/ (accessed July 15, 2014).

Weinschenk, Susan. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2011.

Wilson, Mark. “4 Myths about Apple Design, from an Ex- Apple Designer.” Co. Design. https://www.fastcompany.com/3030923/4-myths-about-apple-design-from-an-ex-apple-designer (accessed July 15, 2014).

Tools & Guidelines

Design basics for Windows apps

Designing for macOS

W3C standards for contrast

Human Factors International ROI Calculators

Measuring Usability article on the SUS (System Usability Scale)

Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics

ISO 9241-210:2019 Ergonomics of human-system interaction, Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems