Playability expert appointed for Australian gaming industry

Stan Beer
Monday, 09 April 2007 05:48

IT People - People

Australian specialist gaming usability firm UsabilityOne, has apointed US playability expert, Keith Steury.  Playability refers to the ease with which users can negotiate their way through video games and interactive media; making the technology better for the user and driving sales for the publisher. In the past, Mr Steury. who holds a M.S. in cognitive psychology from the University of Washington, has worked on over a dozen Microsoft games, including the successful Halo series.

Before coming to the Games User Research Group, Mr Steury contracted as a usability engineer at Microsoft Research and more recently he coordinated a full usability review of Telstra's Mobile Next G services.

According to Jamie Griesemer, lead designer of Halo 2, the user playability experts and user-testing played an enormous role in the Halo’s popularity.

“Halo’s success lies in its approachability,” he said. “Many games throw novice players into high-pressure situations with no guidance at all and then punish them with long load times and loss of progress when they inevitably fail. Halo, on the other hand, hooked them, introduced them to the controls and the game mechanics and taught them how to have fun with the game.”

According to Shefik Bey, Director of UsabilityOne, Mr Steury’s appointment will give UsabilityOne a leading advantage in the world-wide market. 

“Keith is a huge coup – not only for UsabilityOne but for the Australian market as a whole – especially as the games market grows and interactive media becomes more and more sophisticated,” he said. “He brings a rare skills-set in game playability to Australia that is respected throughout the world.”