Having first come to the public in 2002, Nintendo classic, Shantae ought to be counted among platform legends like the Krash Bandicoots, and Donkey Kongs of yesteryear. The game has enjoyed several reimaginings and platform jumps – PC, PlayStation, and Xbox – throughout its two decade tenure in the gaming world.

The game was first released for the Nintendo DSi portable gaming platform in October 2010, with a follow-up release the following year. The 2011 release of the game also featured a new Magic Mode, which sees our main protagonist, Shantae wielding extra attack power, at the expense of defensive ability though. I’m 2014, the studio released Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut. So titled because, at the time, the gaming firm had intended to release new iterations of the title as episodes of a greater narrative. 

That plan went the way of the dinosaurs, however, and instead, saw Risky’s Revenge releasing on multiple platforms in the years leading up to the Stadia release. Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut saw an iOS release that very year, with a PlayStation for port happening in  2015. Nintendo Wii U players got to enjoy the game in 2016, and Xbox enthusiasts saw a port to their platform of choice last year. 

The veteran Shantae title released alongside stablemate, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition on Google Stadia’s game streaming platform on the 23rd of February, this year. Meaning an new generation of gamers can spend hours trying to help Shantae save the day. 

The title’s narrative revolves around a Half-Genie heroine named Shantae. She is the appointed guardian of a territory called scuttle city. She loses her prestigious title after failing to thwart dastardly buccaneering ne’erdowell, Risky Boots, crashes a relic convention and pilfers a curious lamp. She sets out to restore her honor – Like Zuko in Avatar: Legend of The Last AirBender – by going after Risky.

Her uncle, Mimic, let’s her in on the fact that magic seals – three of ten, because its never easy – will be necessary to release the lamp’s powers. Probably figuring that she should head Risky off, Shantae set off to deal with the Barons of the Sequin Land, three treasure hunters who are currently in possession of the seals in question..

Risky dupes the Half-Genie’s allies into betraying her by handing her uncle over to her – trust greed. Upon Shantae’s return, Risky launches her trap and forces her to hand the seals over, in exchange for her uncle’s life. The title delivers hours of engaging gameplay with Shantae’s mix of abilities. 

Her main weapon is her hair, which she uses to whip enemies to oblivion. She also gains spells throughout the game, which offer the advantage of range attacks. The half genie also has the ability to morph into various animals, which allow for extra abilities. She can transform into a mermaid to swim underwater, an elephant to smash heavy objects, or clear away obstacles to new map areas. Shantae can also become a monkey to climb or scurry between walls.

The game’s 2D platform format is probably why it scored so highlg with critics. The Shantae titles  remind one of classic platform games like Castlevania, but has a lot of modern twists which make it an incredibly enjoyable title.

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The Internet’s most famous ambassador, Google, has been hard at work pioneering pushes into new kinds of technology. Owing to the Corona Virus induced reality that humanity is still coming to terms with, communal events where we gather in our masses to generate a lot of noise while interacting, learning, and being entertained have gone digital. Google’s 3D offering seems geared to such a reality. 

The internet’s go-to video content sharing platform, YouTube, first enabled 3D video streaming back in 2015.  This time however, content creators will be able virtually put the audience in the action (imagine streaming 360 Degree views of a concert, or sporting event) complete with spatial audio, to enhance the viewing experience. 

“…We’re also launching spatial audio for on-demand YouTube videos. Just as watching a concert in 360 degrees can give you an unmatched immersive experience, spatial audio allows you to listen along as you do in real life, where depth, distance and intensity all play a role.” – YouTube statement, 2016

It wasn’t until June of this year, however, that Google announced a method to bring live 360 degree video streaming to their over – 1 billion strong – user base. The firm revealed that it’s research team had figured out a new method of capturing and compressing the 3D footage down to a lighter format, making it possible to render the video on  standalone VR/AR devices.

Volumetric video, as the technology is called, enables viewers to move their heads around naturally to get a full view of their virtual environment. This aspect surpasses current VR display tech, which allows for a limited, at times awkward, amount of head movement. 

To achieve this, Google’s Research and Development squad fitted 46 time-synced cameras to a dome, 92cm in diameter. This delivers, to the viewer, an 80cm area of natural head movement in a 220+ degree field of vision, 10 pixels per degree of angular resolution, as well as 30 frames per second video capturing capability. All the better to virtually put you right in the action with, my dear.

Researchers claim their volumetric video system can reconstruct objects that are just 20cm away from the camera. This is achieved via an interpolation algorithm planted in the firm’s deep learning software, DeepView. 

The team have switched the standard multiplane image scene representation with a set of sphere shaped shells, apparently they work better for capturing panoramic light field footage. 

“We further process this data to reduce the large number of shell layers to a small, fixed number of RGBA+depth layers without significant loss in visual quality. The resulting RGB, alpha, and depth channels in these layers are then compressed using conventional texture atlasing and video compression techniques. The final, compressed representation is lightweight and can be rendered on mobile VR/AR platforms or in a web browser,” – Google’s research people.

It’s immediately apparent that Google may have, not only, improved 360 degree video capturing capability, but made it easier and cheaper for folks to produce and consume said content. It is still unclear how Google plans to deploy this discovery, but we may soon see it become a feature on YouTube. It would really make using Google maps a blast. 

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UX is short for user experience. During the user experience design process in website development, developers focus on how the website will be perceived by users. They look into the needs, values, abilities, and limitations of their target audience in order to curate a user experience that meets expectations and that users find values in what the website is providing.

Meaningful user experience must provide:

• Useful content that is original and relevant to a user’s search intent
• High web usability
• Easy navigation
• Accessibility
• Visuals and design elements that reflect the brand identity and evoke emotions

Why UX Matters?

While SEO strategies can help your website get noticed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the traffic will convert into sales or lasting relationships will be formed with your customers.

Your website is often the initial link between your business and your target customers. That is why it is imperative to ensure your website, particularly for new businesses or startups trying to establish a reputation and credibility online, leaves a good first impression by providing pleasant user experience. Businesses can create a customized narrative that attracts target consumers’ attention, piques their interest, and convinces them to buy into the product or services offered. Seamless interaction promotes user activation. If your website is unresponsive, difficult to navigate or use, and doesn’t provide users with valuable information about your products or services, they will most likely leave your website frustrated.

Beyond providing a seamless browsing experience, UX enhances brand loyalty. This is a great thing for any business in the long run. Startups can get a head start on their competitors if they can establish brand loyalty early on, leading to long-lasting relationships with their customers.

Furthermore, Google’s increasing emphasis on user experience and algorithm updates aims to showcase the best user-centric search results only which means that website UX will take up an indispensable role in SEO and search ranking.

What Affects UX?

There are a lot of components that constitute a positive user experience. Customers tend to remember and return to brands that they trust and feel most familiar and comfortable with. Here are a few factors that can influence the user experience.

HTTPS

It’s not uncommon to hear about a hacking incident in which customer information and payment details are stolen. HTTPS is an internet communication protocol that protects the integrity and privacy of data between the user’s computer and your website as a way to safeguard it from data theft and man-in-the-middle attacks. Google has also begun to label HTTP websites as “Not Secure” since 2018 to help users identify which sites are safe. So installing SSL certificates and updating your website to HTTPS is crucial to let your visitors know your website values user privacy, thus, building trust in the brand and enhancing customer retention and loyalty.

Page Speed

Google’s 2018 study found that more than 50% of users on mobile devices will choose to leave the website if a web page’s loading time is more than 3 seconds, implying that websites can lose potential customers with slow page speed and end up with a high bounce rate.

Content Quality

Having a pretty packaging is not enough to draw your users in. You need to make sure to have quality content. High-quality content needs originality, relevance, and practicality. It’s not just about copywriting but also visuals, layout, and readability. Furthermore, it is best to avoid duplicated written content within the website. By doing so, the website can provide more value to the users and become more accessible, useful, usable, and credible for both users and web crawlers. This encourages return visits and drives on-site traffic which helps improve SEO ranking.

Navigation

Easy navigation invites users to explore the website fully, and as they do so, long-lasting relationships are formed. It is best if the website’s navigation structure allows users to reach any web page with no more than three clicks. You may also consider utilizing breadcrumbs as a second navigation system. It provides users that are unfamiliar with your site a visual aid for discovering which page of the site’s hierarchy structure they are at and possibly browse to a higher-level page or related pages if they need more information.

How Does Google Measure UX?

One way of measuring UX is by looking at the user signals.

1. Pogo sticking

Pogo sticking is a strong sign that users are not happy with what they are seeing in the search results. What it means is that users are visiting several search results to find a result that satisfies their search intent. It is also a user signal Google heavily relies on when sorting out the first page results. Say a user clicked on the top result on the SERP but the content doesn’t answer their query or the page doesn’t respond to interactions, the user then goes back to the SERP and clicks on a second result. What it tells Google is that the user wasn’t happy with this result, so Google reorganizes the search rankings and the page may end up a few spots lower. Put simply, poor user experience can affect the search ranking of your website as well as chances of conversion.

2. Bounce rate

The bounce rate reflects the percentage of users leaving a website after only viewing one page and without taking any actions such as filling in a form, clicking on alike, or making a transaction. A high bounce rate may indicate that your site has poor user experience as a result of failing to provide useful information, slow loading time, responsive design, etc.

3. Dwell time

Dwell time is the amount of time that a user spends on a web page they found on SERPs (search engine results pages). It is also considered an important Google ranking factor as it indicates how happy a user is with the content and the browsing experience. A page that is hard to use, visually unappealing, and doesn’t provide valuable information will tend to result in shorter dwell time.

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