Context
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a game that came out in 2023, after its predecessor: Breath of the Wild, innovated on the formula of the Zelda franchise. The Ultra Hand tool is a feature in the game that allows you to manipulate and create new objects which allows infinite creativity from its players. This sparked my curiosity: if this mechanic is so important to the game, how do different types of players actually experience it?
The Ultra Hand literally becomes part of Link after he loses his hand in battle, making it narratively and mechanically essential to the entire game. I wanted to understand how players evaluate the experience of creating objects with this ability, and whether Nintendo succeeded in making such a complex tool accessible to everyone.
I chose to focus on Ultra Hand for its practicality for testing compared to Link's other new abilities, and because it was the feature generating the most social media engagement, making it ideal for analyzing both individual user experience and community impact.
The Problem
How do players of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom evaluate the experience of creating objects with the Ultra Hand ability?
Research Approach
I designed a multi-method qualitative study to capture the full complexity of how players experience this game mechanic. As a student researcher, I focused on getting rich, detailed insights from each method to understand the nuances of player experience.
Heuristic Analysis served as my baseline evaluation. I systematically assessed the Ultra Hand interface against Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, documenting specific examples of how the tool succeeded or failed at each criterion. This gave me a expert perspective on the design's technical merits.
Community Analysis was crucial because I noticed the viral nature of Ultra Hand content across platforms. I analyzed engagement metrics and content patterns on TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit to understand how social sharing influenced the overall user experience. This helped me quantify the tool's cultural impact beyond individual gameplay.
Semi-structured interviews with four participants - strategically split between novice/veteran and male/female to capture diverse perspectives - let me explore the emotional and experiential aspects that heuristics couldn't measure. I focused on themes around difficulty, immersion, and long-term satisfaction.
Usability testing with two participants provided behavioral evidence to validate interview insights. I designed three realistic tasks (vehicle creation, combat usage, and free exploration) and observed actual interaction patterns, completion times, and frustration points.
Key Research Insights
Traditional usability metrics told only part of the story. The heuristic analysis revealed that Ultra Hand performs well on most conventional criteria - clear visual feedback, intuitive iconography, and good error prevention. However, I discovered that Nielsen's heuristics, designed for productivity software, don't account for the intentional complexity that makes games engaging.
Community engagement revealed unexpected UX value. The viral content was staggering - individual TikTok videos reached 10.9 million views, YouTube content hit 4.2 million views, and Reddit posts generated 14,000+ upvotes in dedicated communities. This massive engagement showed me that the tool's complexity, while initially frustrating, actually drives the social sharing that extends the game's reach and creates long-term value.
Player experience varied dramatically by background. Novice players consistently described a steep learning curve with significant frustration around control schemes and feature retention. Yet they also expressed genuine satisfaction upon mastering creations. As one participant explained:
"It limits someone like me who hasn't played recent games from understanding how to get there. I had a lot of difficulty because the game isn't very explanatory."
Veteran players had a surprisingly different relationship with difficulty. While they demonstrated faster task completion and greater creative freedom, they were actually more likely to abandon challenging tasks if they didn't succeed quickly. However, they valued the tool's ability to create unique experiences:
"Each person I know who played the game did it somewhat differently, but still reached the same result... it's fun to hear their unique stories."
Context significantly impacted usability outcomes. In testing, the expert completed vehicle creation in 5 minutes while the novice took 10 minutes with visible frustration. But for combat usage, the expert quickly abandoned the difficult task while the novice persisted for 20 minutes using creative defensive strategies until achieving success.
Constraints
One of the biggest constraints with this study was the lack of secondary research because of the scope of the project. The relationship between UX and Video Games is still largely unexplored, especially games that are made purely for entertainment. Furthermore, we also faced difficulty in applying design heuristics to video games, since such a study has not been explored deeply. It was a great honor, however, to contribute to this research and start a discussion.
Finally, originally we had planned to create and evaluate user surveys to gauge the users’ experience with the Ultra Hand, however, due to time constraints, we had to adjust and combine the goals into the user interviews.
Takeaways
My initial hypothesis was disproven as users, regardless of skill level, struggled to adapt to the Ultra Hand tool. One user with a disability found it especially challenging due to physical limitations. The solution is clear: enhancing accessibility and usability while providing more detailed guidance for a smoother user experience. Despite these challenges, users remained eager to master the tool, highlighting the need for ongoing discussions in video game UX to further improve playability.
What I would do next
Expand sample size and diversity
Validating these initial patterns across broader user groups, particularly testing with players from different cultural backgrounds, would ensure the findings aren't limited to my specific participant pool
Conduct longitudinal research across their tool progression
This project only tested a controlled portion of usage. Understanding player progression through their first 20+ hours with the tool could inform more effective onboarding design.
Conduct competitive analysis against similar tools
I would ensure to analyze other games like Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet, and Mario Maker. This would help identify which UX patterns are specific to Ultra hand vs. common to the creative tool category.
The community analysis aspect particularly interests me for future product work. Understanding how social sharing influences individual user behavior has applications beyond gaming - any product where user-generated content drives engagement could benefit from these insights.
