The secrets in game testing
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This document discusses psychology and behavioral principles related to mobile app and game design. It explains that much of app and game usage is habitual and driven by unconscious motivations rather than conscious decision making. Variable and social rewards can be particularly motivating due to psychological desires for pleasure from others, resources, information, mastery, and a sense of control and completion. Proper trigger design and balancing of these intrinsic and extrinsic motivations is important for engaging user behavior and driving continued app usage over time. Questions at the end assess potential negative impacts of overuse or manipulation.
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The secrets in game testing
- 1. the SECRETS in mobile & games TESTING Michaël Pilaeten @mpilaeten
- 8. PSYCHOLOGY
- 13. 1996
- 15. 1998
- 17. 2017
- 18. 2617 usage sessions per day 145 minutes of daily usage
- 22. a behaviour done with little or no thought
- 23. 10% 50% - 60% 30% - 40% conscious subconscious unconscious daily activities habits directives 40% 60%
- 29. EXTERNAL TRIGGER
- 30. INTERNAL TRIGGER
- 40. ABILITY MOTIVATION hard easy low high b = m + a + t trigger succeeds trigger fails
- 46. variable rewards are stronger than fixed rewards Fixed rewards Rat presses lever and gets cheese every other time (50%) Variable rewards Rat presses lever and gets cheese at random (50%) DESIRE 52 % HIGHER
- 47. 3 types of variable rewards Copyright Nir Eyal
- 48. TRIBE Copyright Nir Eyal We enjoy pleasure from other people We like social rewards We love our tribes We value recognition and cooperation
- 49. social media
- 50. HUNT Copyright Nir Eyal We search for resources … for variable material reward … for variable information rewards
- 53. SELF Copyright Nir Eyal We search for mastery We search for compentency We search for consistency We search for completion We search for control
- 54. Not with other people No material rewards Next level, next achievement
- 59. A - Any habit has 4 parts: T - Trigger A - Action R - Reward I - Investment
- 60. boredom catch & breed level increase walk / catch more
- 62. Do you want to use the application again? … within 2 days?
- 63. Do you use the application on the toilet? Do you go to the toilet to use the application?
- 64. Do you miss conversations while using the app?
- 65. Are you teased do make in-app purchases? … while the game is free? … and there’s no win guarantee?
Editor's Notes
- Invite to the 22nd SQA Days Excellent conference, international audience and international speakers, superb organisation. CHECK! I’m in. The location? Saint Petersburg. Great location, lots of history. Hermitage museum CHECK! What do I need? Flight, Hotel, Presentation.
- Let me give you an example how you and me are mislead. Every day, over and over again, via various ways.
- Let’s start with booking a hotel in Saint Petersburg. Why not booking.com, the worlds largest hotel reservation site?
- Exceptional (9,8) Location (9,9) Guest Favourite Bigger than most There’s only one like it Big discount in red: € 439 - € 241 Let’s try
- Sense of urgency Just booked this (stays there for 23h 59min)
- The revies score is the average of the averages One item might be bad (cleanliness), but since so many factors are taken into account, scores are levelled. Even one bad factor might ruin your experience Oh, and these numbers… The review scores are inflated: booking.com does not use a 0 to 10 scale, but a 2,5 to 10 scale.
- The average human attention span is… <TAKE PHONE AND CHECK EMAIL>>>
- A study funded by Microsoft and undertaken in Canada shows the decline of the average human attention span
- The male toilet problem 2 toilets: hmm, I might have someone next to me 3 toilets: a problem when someone uses the middle toilet (men always go outer left or outer right) 4 toilets: only 2 toilets will be used simultanuously (1 and 3 or 2 and 4) Not limited to men: suppose you have 4 toilet cabinets. What’s the percentage of toilet paper usage per cabinet? It’s 10%, 40%, 35%, 15%. Subconsciousness, we believe that the first cabinet will be the most used (nearest). The farest toilet will also be avoided, since we assume it will be the dirtiest. This way, psycholofy influences our day to day decisions, without us noticing it. Subconsciously. BTW: to overcome the toilet booth problem, UX designers came up with a solution: assign the first cabinet to people with a handicap, which are far less represented.
- And don’t let me even start on this discussion…
- Remember these? Tamagochi. Virtual pets you kept with you. After every x amount of time, you had to feed them, nurse them, etc. We thought they were silly. We though they were a waste of time. To keep them happy, owners needsd to play with them approximately 90 minutes per day.
- Then came the Furby A virtual pet, but something you could touch. It could complain. It could sort-of mimick your language. The sattisy its needs, an attention time of 120 minutes daily was required.
- Average users use their phone 2617 times a day. Often short sessions Average users use their phone for 145 minutes a day. That’s 2,5 hours of active usage.
- This photo was taken on 2005 – two years before the debut of the first iPhone – when visitors faithfully gathered to witness Pope John Paul II’s body being carried into the Basilica for public viewing
- This photo was taken in 2013, as Pope Francis made his inaugural public appearance. A coupled months -> Placebo Brian Molko
- Let’s talk about habits. People, we, are masters of habit A habit is a behaviour done with little or no thought.
- 3 types of behaviour: Conscious (we know we do it and why we do it) - intentional Subconscious (we know we do it, but we don’t know why we do it) - unintentional Unconscious (we don’t know we do it) – unaware HABIT: subconscious + unconscious 80% - 90% 40% of our daily activities are habits, and thus either subconscious or unconscious
- How do you create a potentially succesfull product? By designing an experience. Experience: a journey, activities you will remember, regardless of the outcome or result By connecting a problem of a user to your solution. You might have the best product, but if it does not solve a true problem, no one needs it
- All the knowledge we talked about: the psychologies, the habits, the conscious, subconscious and unconscious. All that was grouped into a model that we guarantee succes for IT related products. The model was created by NIR EYAL. Whom, by the way, has written an excellent book: How to Build habit-forming technologies. It’s a model aimed at hooking potential customers to your new product The model Shapes customer preferences Forms tastes Takes hold of habits
- The hook model is based on academical studies and empirical research. It’s used in most known IT companies to develop their products. Think Facebook, think Candy Crush Saga, think Instagram, think Pokemon Go The model itself is comprised of 4 distinctive phases, which a potential customer undergoes sequentially and ideally iteratively.
- The first phase is called the TRIGGER A trigger is something that tells you what to do next. We recognize 2 kinds of triggers: external triggers and internal triggers
- We all know external triggers: blinking images, buttons that say Click Here, See More or Order Now. To put it comprehensively: all the information on what to do next is within the trigger. These external triggers are in our environments the entire time, and make our life easier.
- Just like an external trigger, the internal trigger tells us what to do next, but the information comes from an association inside our memory. Internal triggers are as such stored as memory inside our head. Such an internal trigger cues us to action. It’s less visible, for other people it’s not so clear, but you are cued to action.
- The most frequent and most intense internal triggers are negative emotions. We are lonely, we are bored, we all suffer from these several times, even several times a day When we feel this way, the unconscious internal trigger is activated via those negative emotions. For example: studies show the people who suffer from depression (ranging from a mild to an extreme form) check their e-mail more often. There’s even a correlation between the form of depression and the time in between the e-mail get checked. A depression is a negative vailant state. To boost your mood again, you go online. Let’s share a few real life examples
- Sleep disorder = less than 8 hours per day Brainscans show Negative triggers like anger and rage increase by 60% if you sleep less than 7,4 hours per night Because we are angry/bored, we use our smartphones more. Smartphones spread blue light, which supresses the body signs of fagigue. We thus don’t want to go to sleep. We sleep less. The occurence of negative triggers increases ITERATIVE If you take a plane, or a long train ride, how many people are falling asleep, even at 10 o’clock? How many times a day do you see people yawning? How many cups of coffee does your team consume per day?
- The second phase is called the ACTION The ACTION is the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a reward Important: it are easy, single no brain activities. We scroll through Pintrest or Instagram, do a quick Google Search, Push the play button on Youtube
- One of the easiest examples comes from the animal kingdom, and is called the Pavlov reflex. By rewarding animals for repetitive and consequent actions, you create a habit: an action to will follow a trigger. The trigger in this case can either by internal or external: Internal: the dog’s hungry, and it will give a paw (the ACTION) to indicate it is hungry External: We ask the dog whether it wants a cookie. The dog gives a paw (the ACTION), since it has a preformed habit that says that when it elevates its leg, it will get a treat.
- Those who have dogs (or kids) will understand that even with the right trigger, not necessarily the correct action will be undertaken. Sometimes, the dog is so distracted that even if you show how the food, it will not give a paw. The guy on the picture is BJ Fogg, a scientist from Stanford University and the first person to underline the between link persuasion and computers. His concept is a set of models that help us to understand how behavior works, but also to help people create succesful products. In a one of the models, BJ Fogg came up with a formula that helps to predict the likelihoof of occurence of a certain behavior. In other words: a formula that companies can use to predict whether something will be used or not.
- First, you need a trigger to start any possible action. Without a trigger, no one will be prompted The second factor is motivation: there should be a reason to do something. No one does something just for the sake of doing something. Finally, you need the ability or abilities to perform the action. Suppose you want to buy something: the trigger is the blinking button “order now”, the motivation is the brand new version of your favorite game that your colleagues have already ordered. The ability is missing: you forgot your credit card at home.
- Behaviour equals motivation + ability + trigger For any behaviour to occur, we require sufficient motivation, sufficient ability and a trigger that brings us into an active state. Things which are diffult to are are on the left, the easy things are on the right. You immediately notice the correlations: Without a trigger, nothing happens The easier something is, the lower the required motivation The more difficult something is, the higher the required moviation Every time red treshold is passed and a trigger is present, an action will be undertaken Companies are trying to push the ability curve as far to the right as possible: the easier the action, the more likely we are to do it.
- The third phase is called the REWARD The REWARD is what invokes the brain, what makes our brain work. In our brain, we have a small part, called the nucleus accumbens.
- That nucleus accumbens is triggered by certain emotions or feelings, such as motivation, passion, satisfaction and falling in love. The cores of the nucleus respond to the rewarding effects of certain behaviors. That nucleaus is also considered responsible for addictive behavior Such a nucleus becomes most active not during the reward, but rather in the ANTICIPATION of a reward. The Strange thing is that when we then finally achieve something, it becomes again less active. Furthermore, over time , the anticipation needs to be bigger and bigger to get the same rewarded feeling. To put it bluntly: our brain forces us to act by stimulating an itch that we seek to scratch. There is, however, a way to supercharge that itch.
- Let me ask you a life decisive question: What is the easiest way to make a million dollars? <<< PAUZE>>> Silence. What I did was using one of the supercharges. A supercharge called desire. (not a streetcar named desire). Desire makes us do the strangest things.
- Desire can be generated with 3 simple actions: Let people wait. Let them anticipate the reward (this is your nucleus accumbens in action) Face people with the unknown. The unknown is fascinating. Think about explorers, inventors. Suppose you’ve booked a hotel for your holidays. You are looking up pictures beforehand to calm your mood. Imagine that you go on holiday, without knowing where you will be going. You get Desire. Either to get to know where you’re going, To go already, to remove the uncertainty, or to cancel the trip (to take away the unmatching desire) Variability, or variable rewards. Make any ouctome variable, so that you don’t know upfront what the result of an action will be. Variable rewarding is one of the strongers motivators for recurrent behavior. You didn’t win today? Come back tomorrow for another chance to 1 million dollars. Variability causes us to focus and engage
- Most habit forming products have 1 or more habit forming variable rewards
- It requires no further explications: casino’s are highly addictive. Addictive because we all believe we can win, even though we’re well aware that casino’s are pure business: the house always wins. Addictive because of the degree of variabibilty. Take slot machines for example: you put on regular basis some money in it, and hope for the best. The ultimate example of variability. Almost unexplicable: suppose I tell you to give at random 5 dollars to people in this conference room. If you give it to the right person, you win 5000 dollar. Would you do that? Guess not.
- Another type of variable reward we hunt for is information. Social information, especially the feed mechanism of app like facebook or Twitter are highly variable in information reward. Research shows that scrolling on a feed gives exactly the same emotion as pulling a slot machine. And, similar to slot machines, we get fooled. Again. Companies like Facebook datamine our activities. Your best friends will never appear first on your wall. No, you have to scroll. How far? That something you do not know, and that’s the variability kicking in.
- We’re looking inside ourselves for intrinisically pleasurable events.
- Even if you’re not a gamer, software holds variable rewards for you. In the domain of SELF, managing your inbox, or managing your tasks gives variable rewards in terms of consistency and completion. This reflects in regulary checking your new e-mails or finishing your To Do’s. All variable rewards to the SELF
- The last phase is called the INVESTMENT The INVESTMENT is something that the user has to do to increase the likelihood of the next passage. Either he invests something, stores a value, makes an offer. In the real world, objects lose value over time due to wear & tear. In the online IT world, the opossite happens: objects you invest become more & more valuable
- Investments increase the likelihood of the next pass in 2 ways Investments load the next trigger to the hook Investments create preference When a user makes an investment, he or she improves the product while using it. It’s the principle of stored value: The more followers The more connections The more likes The better the product becomes to me You’re not likely to leave an app or service when you first stored all this value
- An eye openor for all these enthousiastic developers and testers out there: the BEST product does not always win. The product that can form the MIND MONOPOLY wins. The product that can create a HABIT with and by the customer WINS. A lot of products are simply not engaging enough. Do you like the software you have to use at work? How easy and user friendy is it to interact with government services? The engagement increases the portential of the product
- What does all of that mean to me as a tester? Don’t test just the obvious. Don’t limit yourselves to user stories
- If not, it will not become a habit, and thus not monetize. Test something else.
- If not, it will not become a habit, and thus not monetize. Test something else.
- If not, it will not become a habit, and thus not monetize. Test something else.
- If not, it will not become a habit, and thus not monetize. Test something else.
- Do we want to assist in making games which are THAT addictive? How do you prevent kids from spending too much time on games (homework, social skills)? How do we prevent people of becoming bankrupt becuase of useless app or in-app puchases?
- What we are creating is the cigarette of the 21st century As addictive as possible Investment on both time and money Antisocial Are we willing to support this as testers? Do we even have a choice? And if we don’t… do we still have a job?