The group will assess the relative usability of the game Hearts of Iron 4 on PC with players of varying interests in the genre mainly using the think-aloud protocol.

Usability Method

Players will be allowed to play the very brief tutorial the game has to offer. After that, a completely new game will be started and players will be asked to complete a specific set of goals by the researchers. Players will be asked to perform a number of actions not mentioned in the tutorial such as:

  1. Declaring war
  2. Sending volunteers to fight in another country,
  3. Forming an alliance
  4. Forming a puppet state

The above prompts are just some examples of prompts to be given during play and will not represent the full set of prompts. While playing both the tutorial and the new game, the players will be asked to adhere to the think-aloud protocol while audio and visual recordings are taken.

HOI4Researchers will then analyze the gathered data to see if there is any relationship between interest in the genre and how usable players perceive the game to be.