EFFECT OF HEAD-UP DISPLAY DESIGN ON GAME IMMERSION

Sammanfattning: Game immersion is an important aspect of gaming and is a term used by players and critics alike. It is one of the aspects that keeps a player “hooked” and is often seen as critical for a good game session. A Heads-up Display (HUD) is a common element of most games. It is used to communicate vital information to the player, such as health and ammunition. While these two things are important for gaming, there is not a lot of research on how these two correlate. An experiment with 12 participants was set up to investigate how different HUD designs affect game immersion and whether there is a difference between experienced players and novice players regarding immersion. The experiment, set in the game Fortnite, used eye tracking tounderstand how the participants used the HUD, and a questionnaire to evaluate to what extent a participant was immersed by said HUD. The results show no significant effect of HUD choice on game immersion. Moreover, the results did not show any significant effect of expertise. Although not significant, novice players were more immersed than experts. While also not significant, the results show a trend suggesting that a HUD design with larger elements promptsmore eye fixations over all elements in the HUD. When asking what the participants thought about the HUDs, we could see a significant effect of HUD design on subjective rating.