I recently watched someone play Tic-tac-toe collection for the first time and noticed some issues with the new player experience. When the app loaded they immediately pressed the “Play Now” button on the Rumble announcement (without reading anything). Next they tried to tap somewhere to play, despite the fact that the instruction overlay was visible and it was the AI’s turn. Then they made a line and were confused about why the game continued. After working things out and completing the game, they wanted to see their results (since they weren’t first and this was a multiplayer game) but didn’t immediately work out how.

This is all a little disheartening, but not surprising. It goes to show the importance of user testing. Version 0.5.3 (which is currently in beta) includes fixes for some of these issues.

There is still more to do. I think having the first thing the player does is play a game on an large grid, with many players and that doesn’t end when someone gets a line is not ideal. On the other hand I do want to push the fact that the app does far more than just simple Tic-tac-toe.