Interactive Prototype 1 - Refleciton and Review

The Prototype

The prototype I created for this test was a simple keyboard version of the game.  I wanted to test the mine detection system which the first lot of testing had revealed to be a concern.  I created two versions.  

Version 1 detected when a mine was in the eight squares surrounding the one pressed.  

Version 2 differentiated between mines in the straight out dots and those in the diagonally adjacent dots.  

The Questions

1. How easy did you find avoiding the mines in version 1?
1. Very easy, easy, meh, hard, very hard.
2. How easy did you find avoiding the mines in version 2?
1. Very easy, easy, meh, hard, very hard.
3. If you were playing the full game how useful do you think having the mine detection system from version 1 would be?
1. Very useful                Useful             Meh                 Unhelpful       Completely useless
4. If you were playing the full game how useful do you think having the mine detection system from version 2 would be?
1. Very useful                Useful             Meh                 Unhelpful       Completely useless
5. What features of version 1 did you like?
6. What features of version 2 did you like?
7. What features of version 1 didn't you like?
8. What features of version 2 didn't you like?
9. Which version did you prefer?
10. What one thing would you change about version 1 to make it better?
11. What one thing would you change about version 2 to make it better?
12. Any other comments?

For this testing session I switched back and forth between start with version 1 and then 2 to try and remove that bias from the testing.  

The Feedback

People had far more mixed responses than I'd thought.  I'd expected people to prefer version 2, but while there was a preference for version 2 a couple of people actually liked version 1 better. 

I think overall the second version wins, the best feedback I got to articulate why was:  Liked version 2 because of the higher level of logic, felt that had better change of finding the mines so was more willing to explore to find the mines.  In the first one felt much more chance/random luck and thus was unwilling to explore and move about. 

My Thoughts About the Questions and Stuff

I felt that the first 9 questions were helpful, the last three not so much.  I found the comment questions more helpful as they gave me whys, while the first 4 where kind of a mixed bag.  Some people also put down that they found one version harder than they other but then said they would find it more useful, so I'm not sure that the questions were as clear as the could have been.