Usability and Engageability: Balancing the Two Halves of Game UX

First published as an Acagamic Tip Tuesday on acagamic.com. Edited for this archive.

Two qualities decide much of a game’s success: usability and engageability. Usability covers controls, the user interface, and accessibility. Engageability is what motivates players, inspires them, and holds their attention. A great game needs the right blend of both.

A great game is easy to play and hard to put down.

Usability: can players play it?

ISO 9241-11 defines usability as the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” In games, usability means players can understand and play the game without fighting it. Beyond the ISO definition, games need five things:

1. A clear user interface. Menus, settings, and vital information should be easy to read and use. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt shows health, a minimap, and active quests at a glance, so players always know their state and goals.
2. Responsive controls. The Super Mario series makes running, jumping, and stomping simple, while leaving depth for advanced play.
3. Signs and feedback that guide players. Feedback teaches mechanics and shows progress. In Dark Souls, bonfires serve as checkpoints and safe zones that help players navigate and mark milestones.
4. Accessibility. Remappable controls, colour-blind settings, and difficulty options open a game to more players. The Last of Us Part II set a high bar with dozens of options for different needs.
5. A consistent design language. Consistent visuals and sounds teach players the rules. The Legend of Zelda series plays the same chime whenever a player finds a secret or solves a puzzle.

Playtesting and user research improve usability. Feedback from a wide range of players reveals faults that designers can fix in the next iteration.

Engageability: do players want to keep playing?

An engaging game motivates players and moves them emotionally. Four elements drive engageability:

1. Meaningful goals and rewards. In Red Dead Redemption 2, players chase objectives and side quests for the rewards and for the rich story and characters.
2. Intrinsically motivating play. Games should meet players’ core psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, players roam a vast open world (autonomy), build their character’s skills (competence), and form bonds with characters through quests and dialogue (relatedness).
3. Emotional engagement. Story, characters, and aesthetics connect players to the game world. The Last of Us is known for a story and characters that make players care.
4. Flow. Players reach flow when challenge matches skill. Celeste raises its platforming demands step by step while giving players the tools to master them.

Player feedback and analytics help teams tune engageability with real data. Retention, completion rates, and in-game behaviour show where players lose interest.

How to balance both

Usability makes a game easy to play. Engageability keeps players playing. Three practices help teams balance the two:

1. Iterate. Test and refine game elements over many cycles based on playtest data. Epic Games has repeatedly adjusted Fortnite’s mechanics, UI, and events based on player input.
2. Run user research throughout development. Usability tests, focus groups, and surveys give designers constant feedback. Blizzard Entertainment used player feedback to refine Overwatch’s hero balance, maps, and game modes.
3. Get design, development, and research talking. Teams that share findings, review design decisions together, and iterate as one group find the balance faster.

Keep the player experience at the centre of every decision, and test both qualities together. A game that is easy to play but dull fails, and so does a gripping game that players can’t figure out.