A Thinking Ape
S.M.A.S.H Monsters
S.M.A.S.H Monsters was an iOS game at A Thinking Ape where I acted as a UX consultant to the lead designer, planning and running the usability tests.
Overview
Smash things!
No longer on the app store, this was an iOS game that I worked on at A Thinking Ape. The goal of the game was to conquer rival S.M.A.S.H agents with your monster army while defending your city from their futile attacks.
My Role
As I was currently managing two other products at the time, I mainly served as a UX Consultant to the lead designer.
Usability Tests
Testing, debriefs, and reports
To assist the lead designer, I planned, conducted and reported on formal usability tests, then offered suggestions on how to fix the main issues.
Here you can see an example of the first Usability Tests I ran on S.M.A.S.H.
I encourage my team to watch these, as I like to do a formal debrief with them after where they get to highlight the top issues they found, then we brainstorm solutions right there.
If there is not enough consistent feedback, and we cannot run more tests, then I report my observations on each screen to allow the team to decide on what is important.
Here you can find two of the Usability Test Reports for S.M.A.S.H. This first report is from the videos above, and this second report is after several months of iterations.
The Outcome
Showed the value of early testing
Though I didn't have my eye on the metrics, my personal win was that I showed several people the benefits of early testing for products with a lot of unknowns. This is proven by the fact that they had me do more testing for them several months later.