Smartphone Games Heuristics (SmGH) – Towards a Standard Set of Platform-Centric Heuristic for Smartphone Games Evaluation

Abstract

The assessment of software application usability typically relies on a predefined set of general principles known as heuristics. However, these heuristics are often used interchangeably to evaluate games across different platforms such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops, potentially leading to inconsistent or inaccurate evaluations. Hence, there is a notable absence of a standard platform-centric heuristics to evaluate games for a particular platform. In this paper, we address this gap by developing 144 smartphone game heuristics (SmGH), spanning across six categories and accounting for technical, non-technical, and gameplay aspects. Further, we compared our proposed SmGH with four mobile game heuristics published in the literature. The aim of the comparison was to identify the overlaps and differences between SmGH and the existing heuristics in mobile game literature. Lastly, we conducted a preliminarily assessment of the utility of SmGH using gameplay analysis of 5 popular smartphone games (from 2017 to 2021, having 4.5+ average rating and 100 M + downloads) and 12 recent smartphone games (released in 2022). We obtained two important findings. First, there is a limited overlap among various mobile game heuristics in the literature. The first finding highlights an important takeaway to establish a standard set of platform-specific heuristics in both game user research and the industry. Second, popular games tend to incorporate a larger proportion of heuristics compared to recently released games. The second finding provide insights into the number and distribution of heuristics across all six categories within smartphone games, which will be beneficial for future evaluations of new and unseen games using SmGH. The second finding also suggest that adherence to platform-centric game heuristics may contribute to a game’s popularity on a particular platform and could be a factor considered by game developers. This work contributes to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and smartphone games by advancing our understanding and application of platform-centric game heuristics and highlights the significance of SmGH as a standard and reliable set of heuristics in the design and evaluation of smartphone games.

Keywords:

• Smartphone games
• game heuristics
• content analysis
• player reviews
• player-centric design
• platform-centric heuristics
• games
• standard heuristics

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through the Discovery Grant. The research is conducted as part of the Dalhousie University Persuasive Computing Lab. The authors would like to thank Dr. Gerry Chan for his support and providing valuable feedback towards the successful completion of this research.

Author contributions

Ravishankar Subramani Iyer designed and conducted the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures, and tables, authored and reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.

Chinenye Ndulue designed and conducted the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures, and tables, authored and reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.

Sandra Meier conceived the experiments, authored and reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.

Rita Orji conceived the experiments, authored and reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program.

Notes on contributors

Ravishankar Subramani Iyer

Ravishankar Subramani Iyer is a Ph.D. student at Dalhousie University, in the Faculty of Computer Science. His interests are in the domain of HCI, UI/UX, Digital Games, Applied ML, and mobile app development. His PhD research involves leveraging typing metrics for timely interventions of mental disorders among youth.

Chinenye Ndulue

Chinenye Ndulue is a Ph.D. Candidate at Dalhousie University, Canada. His research interests include Human Computer Interaction, Persuasive System Design, Persuasive Games, and UX/UI design. He applies his research into understanding how user characteristics (such as culture, motivation and personality) impact the effectiveness of persuasive systems and games.

Sandra Meier

Sandra Meier is a clinical researcher and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Developmental Psychopathology and Youth Mental Health. Her research focuses on the benefits and risks of modern technology use in terms of its impact on youth mental health.

Rita Orji

Rita Orji is a Canada Research Chair in Persuasive Technology and a Computer Science Professor at Dalhousie University where she directs the Persuasive Computing Lab. Her research intersects between technology and human behavior with a major focus on investigating user centered approaches to improve lives and promote desirable behaviors.