teach students methodologies for involving players in their design process, creating test scenarios, really listening to feedback, evaluating results, and learning how to productively integrate changes into their designs.

This is exactly what we do in the games programs at USC Interactive Media. At every level of design instruction, playtesting is part of the process. From informal tests of paper prototypes, to more structured tests in our state-of-the-art lab for digital projects, students are taught to embrace player feedback. My hope is to train a generation of designers who use solid, repeatable methodologies in their design process, ones that allow them to take greater risks in their work, expand the boundaries of play, and explore its innate beauty.

design nirvana. Before, it had just been me and my idea. Now I was engaged in a dialogue with my players, and with Kevin, who helped me learn how to integrate player feedback with discretion.

Later when I began to teach game design, I remembered that epiphany, and I knew there was no way to explain to my students how important user testing is to the design process—they would have to experience that moment of insight themselves. But I could build it into their training. I could force them to sit behind that glass and watch players try to use their game. I could

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tracy Fullerton has been a game designer for 15 years, developing projects for companies including Microsoft, Sony, Disney, Intel, MTV, and NBC. Currently, she is co-director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab at USC, where she has worked on experimental games such as Cloud, flow, and The Night Journey. She is also the author of Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, a design textbook in use at game programs worldwide whose second edition is scheduled for release in early 2008.

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DOI 10.1145/1340961.1340971

March + April 2008