Better Games Through Usability Evaluation and Testing

There are many reasons why usability is important in games. For one, playing games is voluntary. If the player has to struggle with problems that make playing less fun than doing something else, then there is nothing to stop the player from switching off the console. This is a serious risk as the user experience is very sensitive to usability problems. Even the smallest glitch or hiccup in the user interface may render an otherwise good game into a rather annoying experience. For example, if managing the inventory in a role playing game is not fluent enough or restarting a race in a driving game is tedious the player is not likely to enjoy playing the game.