STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Why Game Documentation is Essential to a Satisfying User Experience

by Martin Peterson

With each passing year, video games are becoming more popular with Americans of all ages and the industry is spending more on the creation, publication, and distribution of newer, more technologically superior video games. This trend presents an opportunity for professional writers and communicators. One might assume that the only need for writers in the video game industry is for the production of a game’s instruction booklet. This generalization is far from the truth.

Documentation and information organization are an integral part of video game construction. Currently, there exists no uniform, standardized way to write, document, or organize information in the gaming industry. Because the industry is still young and still developing norms, a gap is evident in the knowledge and methods used. As the necessity for quality video game design and hence proposal documents increases, this knowledge gap presents an opportunity for technical communicators. The video game industry may be one of the directions we, as technical communicators, will move toward in the near future.

Currently, game programmers and designers usually generate all the documentation associated with a game. Technical communicators, who are trained to decipher complex information in order to make it understandable would be better suited for this task. Documenting a video game idea is the backbone on which the rest of the video game production rests. Respected technical communicators Carol M. Barnum and Saul Carliner comment on the importance of documentation in Techniques for Technical Communicators, saying, "As a technical communicator, you want readers not just to read the document, but to use it" (Barnum and Carliner, 1993)

Many technical communicators specialize in design. These design skills can also aid technical communicators in crafting highly effective, usable video game documentation. While little usability research of video games exists, the technical communicator can analyze the design for usability purposes—a skill needed to create video game documentation effectively. Rob Houser and Scott Deloach researched the usability of video games in order to find ways to increase the usability of business applications. The two researchers comment on the lack of research in video games by saying, "The primary purpose [of research] is to get technical communicators thinking about design, perhaps in a new way, and to lay the groundwork for future research in this area. We believe that by analyzing the design of game applications, designers of business applications can gain insight into how to help their users learn while they complete their tasks." (Houser and Deloach, 1998).

Game documentation is also used as a reference tool for others on a video game design team, so the importance of usable and understandable documents becomes apparent. Richard Rouse, a computer game designer, writer, and programmer, elaborates on this important fact by stating that, "Development documents can be a key way of ‘holding the reins tightly’ on a project, to make sure it does not spin out of control because of the impractical ambitions of team members." (Rouse, 2001).

As this article has shown, documentation is important to the overall success of a video game. The ideas of the professional designer or creator must be well-documented and understandable so that the rest of the video game development staff understands what it is they are creating. With effective documentation, programmers and game coders have clearly articulated ideas that they can refer to while designing the game. Technical communicators have a place in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry.

The industry is still young and those willing to "get in on the ground floor" and embrace the "bleeding edge" of gaming technology could find success in the gaming field.

References

Carol M. Barnum and Saul Carliner, Techniques for Technical Communicators (Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon, 1993).

Rob Houser and Scott Deloach, "Learning from Games: Seven Principles of Effective Design," Journal of Technical Communication, 45, no. 3 (August 1998): 319-329.

Richard Rouse, III, Game Design: Theory & Practice, (Plano, Texas: Wordware Publishing, Inc., 2001).