To learn what users truly felt and experienced, use the six-question framework FFWWDD to collect emotional, practical, and interpretive feedback in a structured way.
Book: The Art of Game Design
How to get honest and useful feedback from user testing your product in a systematic way?
Game designer Shawn Patton proposed the FFWWDD framework to get what the players truly feel when testing their games. It asks the following six questions:
- What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?
- What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?
- Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn't?
- If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be?
- What were you doing in the experience?
- How would you describe this game to your friends and family?
You can remember the six questions with the mnemonic FFWWDD: Frustrating, Favorite, Wanted, Wand, Doing, and Describe.
The order of the questions matters. The first one lets players vent and release irritation before moving on. The second balances that by highlighting the peak of their enjoyment.
Questions three and four may seem similar, but they serve different roles. The third draws out small unmet desires while the fourth invites bold, outside-of-the-box answers.
Question five asks what the player thought their goal or role was, which may or may not match the designer's intention. The last question captures how players frame the whole experience when explaining it to others.
Together, these six prompts cover frustration, joy, unmet expectations, dreams, personal interpretation, and outside perspective. They form a simple but powerful lens for designers to understand how a game feels, not just how it functions.
Another book I found very useful for user interviews is The Mom Test.