TechnoLive: Player and game, interface as a link, Olga Schubert

We continue to publish transcripts of our game development broadcasts. How to make the gaming experience as comfortable as possible? This will tell UX / UI-designer Mail.Ru Group Game Direction Olga Schubert, who has nine years of experience in developing interfaces and game mechanics.

Past issues:
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• How to promote your game among thousands of competitors, Maxim Samoilenko
• How to create a successful mobile game, Ivan Fedyanin
• The history of the gaming industry, Alexander Kuzmenko

Video recording: https://youtu.be/dcmVUIOfy-A

Alexander Kuzmenko: Good evening, dear viewers. In the air of "Tehnostrim" and today we have the final part of our video game series. Today we have the last guest, but not the last one in importance related to the development of electronic games - today our guest is Olga Schubert, an expert in the UX-design of game projects of Mail.Ru Group. Sorry, we all have very long positions. Olga is the most important person in our company, who understands UX relatively to games. Hey.

Olga Schubert: Hi!

. .: Listen, UX is something new in the gaming industry. Usually they start from a plow: "30 years ago, the video game industry appeared in Japan." It is clear that UX did not exist then. We have streams with a human approach. That is, we do not begin immediately to pour in technological terms and so on. There are a lot of people, and not only among our viewers, but also among simply people or employees of our company who love games, do not even know what UX is. Can you briefly say what it is?

O.SH .: Yes, the first thing they ask me is when I try to explain who I work at all. Usually they say: "Oh, you're a programmer, I guess." I say: "No" - "But you are a programmer." I say "No".

. .: Plumber on iron.

O.SH .: Yes, something like that. In fact, for now I’ll tell you a little background on how I came to the gaming industry. How UX appeared in my life and then smoothly go to the answer to the question, if you do not mind.

. .: This was just my second question. Fine. I adore such guests whom even questions can not be asked.

O.SH .: Yes. I came to the gaming industry 9 years ago. Then there were a lot of games on the Russian market, and then the browser game “Legends of the Dragon's Legacy” had just appeared.



I'm not a gamer at all, but someone accidentally showed it to me. I am like: “What-what? Wait". And she scared me terribly. And so it went. I began to play, active on the forum and take an active part in some gaming social life. I have not worked here yet, but I was already drawn to analyze what was happening. The gaming market pulled me this way.

AK: It turns out an unusual phenomenon. Usually, boys like to open a bear to see how it works. And the train dismantled.

O.SH .: Yes. Here I, as a boy, decided to make out, and that was how it all began. Some player wrote some quests for the forum and offered them to the developers, as it usually happens: "Now I will tell you how it should be." And I wrote a smashing, devastating article about this, that "Everything is wrong with you here, everything is wrong, everything is not working so." By this time I had already reached here, wrote a letter for a free vacancy, that I want to work as a writer. She came as an editor. By this time, a devastating article appears on the forum, and the beater breaker wakes up in me. Since then, as soon as I did. My path was long and thorny. I was engaged in the development of quests, and big game scenarios, and just game design, administrator, producing.

AK: I just wanted to say that sorting through all the professions in the gaming industry, you can become a producer. Now you can do everything.

O.SH .: Yes. Then I became the producer of the Territory browser game.



Then we were engaged in the operation. In general, a lot of what they did. And throughout this journey, I was still drawn to the breaking of bears. Ta-dam! I still wanted to understand the essence of things. And at the same time, together with me, as it was impossible more successfully, UX-design began to develop in games. And I touched it quite tightly a few years ago, when I became involved in the development of mobile games. I realized that it was time. Now smoothly turn to the question of what is the UX.

AK: What is UX?

O.SH .: Very often, UX is confused with UI. It is believed that this is all connected with the development of the interface itself. In fact, this is not the case. UX is short for user experience. If translated into Russian, it turns out that this is the study of user experience. That is, it is a development that is built on the user's behavior, on his expectations, on the understanding of these expectations and on an attempt to meet these expectations.

. .: And the UI is the user interface, this is the development of the interface itself.

O.SH .: All that is. Began to understand, dig. In fact, when interfaces were developed in our products, they were invented by different game designers. So it turned out. Every game designer tried to somehow visualize his ideas, who was going for that. As a result, something reached the end user. But when we compared our products with top foreign competitors, the quality went in favor of competitors.

AK: Then there were already some comparison criteria? Or compared like this: like it, no?

O.SH .: Well, not so much ... After all, we are talking about user experience. We played at our place, played at someone else’s, and it became obvious that it’s tastier here, more comfortable here, more informative here, there’s nothing superfluous. And we still have some outdated decisions taken from browser games. Of course, we analyzed it from all points of view. We watched as users play in our and foreign products. And they gradually came to the conclusion that it was necessary to work out a different concept of development. And, as it turned out, our foreign colleagues are already engaged in this. In general, they began to study.

It turned out that almost no one in Russia is doing this. We have UX-labs, absolutely amazing technologies that allow you to explore the user and his reaction to what is happening. But not every developer can afford it, and not every development can be correctly implemented.

UX design involves an iterative approach to development. What does it mean? Here I want to clarify. When we create a product, we focus on its image for the end user. On how this dry idea was originally, a game designer, mathematics (who works there for balance), artists, will meet our expectations. How it will solve some of our business problems, and how the user will solve their tasks to get pleasure from it.

. .: Is there any eternal contradiction in this? Often, you know how it happens. Let's start with the great ones, like Facebook. We all know very well that the column on the right is needed in order to flick through on the iPad, you always poke your finger at this ad. Is this a business task or is it just a wrongly designed interface? I'm sorry to interrupt you. You are very interesting in telling, but I will periodically revive our dialogue with some questions, because Olga is very difficult to stop, and she has very cool stories. And, by the way, I suggest that we have a chat during the stream. Please use this not as a place to find out which UX is better, which approaches, but to ask our wonderful guest questions.

So, Ol, I interrupted you.

O.SH .: Yes, thank you.

. .: Sorry. You have such a cool monologue that I will now be silent for another 15 minutes.

O.SH .: I can talk for a long time. I want to say that each developer takes some appropriate decisions in one direction or another. Sometimes he drags himself to be comfortable, sometimes different. But, as a rule, all this happens at the junction. UX-design is needed in order to link the task of the developer and the task of the user. This is just the golden mean to find. In essence, an interface is a way of interaction between a developer and an end user.

AK: This is obvious.

O.SH .: But here I must say that there are very often confused approaches to the development of interfaces as such, the development of usability. Just recently, we communicated with one of our teams, and it turned out that some kind of game design idea is being developed, based on it a game designer, and maybe the main designer of the team, forms some very conditional prototype, a kind of "fish." Then this “fish” is sent to the designer, he does not understand the original task that the game designer set himself (the author of this is some kind of macrofiche). So the end user does not reach what was intended. And this is exactly what does not solve the problems of either the developer or the user.

This is why it is very important to feel the difference between UX and UI.

AK: When we talked about the difference UX and UI, then there were several questions at once. From chat, I read any provocative or educational issues. Here they write that why fool around the development of the interface (in projects that are not some mega-innovative), when you can quote it, “steal from more successful developers”?

O.SH .: You can stole it. Of course, research is a very important thing. And I would even say that it is very harmful to reinvent the wheel.

AK: Not stolen, but inspired.

O.SH .: Absolutely. It is very harmful to reinvent the wheel, and it’s clear that spending resources on what has already been done is ready. Once again, deriving the Pythagorean theorem is an expensive task that no one needs.

AK: It's easier to buy a textbook.

O.SH .: It's absolutely accurate here.

. .: Isn't it easier to steal?

O.SH .: Spiraya, we need to understand that we are spiraling. All developers - good and bad ones, big top companies, and some indie developers - have bad and good solutions. I will not be able to name a single product that is made perfectly, that nothing bad can be found in it. There is always something bad. And I can always find it. And here you need to very clearly understand what we are inspired by. If we clean up the experience of others without any understanding, then we can break the wood because of the damaged phone. If you take one solution, and without understanding to shift it to another product, then there they can behave quite differently. There may be other users, and off you go. In general, it turns out some kind of snowball, and this can screw up the product.

Why is it important to do this? I am often asked the question: “Why the UX at all? Somehow, everything works without it. ” I want to say that this is the quality of the product. You can spend a lot of money on development, hire the coolest programmer in the world, hire just a brilliant marketer, invest a cloud of money, a lot of resources ...

. .: And you will not find the “on” button later.

O.SH .: ... yes. As a result, the "enable" button, your users will not find, will not find a bank, they will not understand how to use your game. This can spoil all efforts.

AK: You remember the game 15, 20, 30 years ago. The first game was to figure out how to play it. Moreover, this was not filed in an easy learning process, and you had to wade through 1000 interfaces. Everything was done on the knee, and no one cared for you.

Oh, an interesting question. Here he is asked within the framework of “What is UX?”, But already: “How does UX design work?”, Dmitry Valikhin asks us. How is Olga's work day? Very interesting. In UX-design how, what processes do you bring such tremendous benefits, as we have now found out?

O.SH .: In fact, it is an endless process. I always say that not a single task of the UX designer can be considered finally completed. This is a stumbling block, the eternal serious headache of a linear producer in the project, because he wants to complete the task. This is his responsibility. I started talking about the iterative approach, and now I’ll clarify this a little bit. In theory, when we solve a problem ... A game designer comes to us with some kind of TK (Talmud documents), that is, he invented and developed some kind of feature. And the first question that needs to be answered is which business problems we initially solve? What problems in the project we solve this feature and what will it give to users? How do users want to see this?

It is very important not to forget the question of whether this task is really necessary. Sometimes it is relevant.

AK: Can you give a specific example?

O.SH .: There is some kind of subjective approach of a game designer. He believes that we make ratings. He believes that there is some kind of complex filter in the rating. That is, he himself plays, he has some kind of subjective assessment. He says: "Let's get in here." Then you begin to understand the process that only he needs it. All the rest is not necessary. It is necessary to understand that developers think in a completely different way than users. Therefore, we need this assessment. We need a UX-expertise, because we are trying to impose some personal patterns on the user, and he does not understand us.

We started with the task: “What are we doing here?”. There are situations when I look at the documents for a week ... They bring me such a document, and I understand that this is a gigantic task. The first thing you need to understand. And to understand even deeper than the game designer understands it. I will ask him 3 million questions, day and night I will breathe him into the phone. I'll sit down like a mad professor, I will overlap with pieces of paper and I will look into the document for a week. Naturally, this is not always the case. As a rule, we have a very lively and dynamic development. We have no time, and all this needs to be done very quickly. We make a business product, not just a product for your pleasure. But some tasks require such attention and time. I sit, delve into the document, keep quiet, and then how to ask the flow of questions, just endless.

When I get for myself all the answers to these questions, then proceed to the design. I use fairly simple graphic editors, some prototyping tools. Why is that? Many people ask me: “What tools do you use?”. Never…

AK: Good to communicate with you. You are all the banal questions that I prepared in advance, about the tools and so on, you raise yourself. I think I will go.

O.SH .: Yes, yes, yes.

AK: So what about the tools?

O.SH .: I do not like advising tools. There are many of them - paid and free. I am very much, but - they have limited libraries. All this is suitable for some non-game projects. And the game is such an invented world where some additional pieces are most often used that are not in the library. And it takes half a day to expand the library of this tool in order to make a normal detailed prototype. Or it will turn out a fish - this is a conditional prototype, where I conditionally visualize my idea. But as a result, I do not bring it to the designer. He will not be able to do what I thought of, and even more so what the game designer came up with. Essence will be lost.

When we are developing this prototype, when we have already understood how all this will look visually, we first lay out the information architecture. What does that mean? We understand which scenarios within the solution of the problem the user has: what he will do, in what sequence, what interconnections may exist between the windows, how many windows will have to go through, do the steps, and so on. When we all understand this, we begin to assign specific tasks to each window. Understand that “Just about, let's add this here, because it is needed to solve this problem, and it would be good to see it before my eyes. And let's remove this. And then let's cut. And now we’ll cut it off, cut it off and don’t remember anymore. ” All this gigantic work is done long enough. Why? Because as a result, it depends on whether the user will understand it.

At the prototype stage, the formation of the information architecture, we check on users whether our ideas are clear. How well they are correct, flexible and how well they solve the task.

Finally we got the prototype architecture. Be sure to check, check with the game designer. I must say that the constant reference at each stage of work is a constant return to the game designer. He is the author of the idea, he is the keeper of knowledge within a single feature, and therefore it is necessary to synchronize with him constantly. So we completed the task - we visualized the game design idea that he was trying to bring.

AK: Here I will clarify a little. In this process, you are not replacing a game designer? So you communicate directly with the project in the process?

O.SH .: Naturally. I will definitely communicate with the game designer.

AK: No, I mean with the project. Do you play directly at that moment when ...?

O.SH .: Required.

AK: Because, you never know, maybe this is a third-party approach.

O.SH .: No. It is impossible, without knowing the project, to introduce into it any particular feature.

AK: We answered at once a few questions that have just been asked.

O.SH .: Great.

AK: Since you are ready to answer questions, I will periodically interrupt your monologue.

O.SH .: Yes, please.

AK: We still interactive. I remind you that today our guest is Olga Schubert, a specialist in UX-design of game projects in the game direction of Mail.Ru Group. That is, the person is extremely exceptional in the market, you will not find such anywhere else. How do you get such a question from Yura Chumakov: “Is there something like the established tradition in the game interfaces, depending on the genre, the type, maybe, of the engine?”

O.SH .: Yes, of course, there are traditions. These are the patterns I’m talking about. And it is very important to be able to work with these patterns. The user, if he is used to it - we are talking about user experience - then he has already received this experience somewhere. In some products or using some kind of platform. We often take some ready-made platform solutions that are originally. Be sure to look at the genre, trying to understand how hardcore the audience of this genre is, and how ready it is for any changes. Sometimes it happens that you can not go all the time on the old solutions.Sometimes an innovative product requires innovative approaches. And in this case, you need to very carefully check the audience, test it for the possibility of some innovations that it can accept or not accept. All this is necessarily tested. At the stage when we give our prototype to a game designer, it has already been tested. We are confident that it will work correctly and that it will be correctly perceived by the end user. When this is given to the game designer, then there is already everything on the shelves. We know that this part of the window has the highest priority. It must have such and such characteristics. It should be bright, highlighted here, and here the animation is conceived.

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O.SH .: We must meet, yes. I have a lot to tell.

. .: Write to us in Sportloto and at the same time to all other instances. If you really want us to arrange any series of similar "Techno-streams" dedicated to video games, then expand the list of our topics. Because the UX is awesome. Initially, we did not even think it was worth including. But in the end it turned out one of our best gear.

With you today was me, Alexander Kuzmenko. Visiting me, again, I remind you, was the wonderful Olga Schubert. Until new meetings. Thank you for being with us. Until!