Pejman Mirza-Babaei

How does it play better?: exploring user testing and biometric storyboards in games user research

Improving game design is a hard task. Few methods are available in games user research (GUR) to test formally how game designs work for players. In particular, the usefulness of user tests (UTs) for game designers has not been fully studied in the CHI community. We propose a novel GUR method called Biometric Storyboards (BioSt) and present a study demonstrating how a Classic UT and a BioSt UT both help designers create a better gameplay experience. In addition, we show that BioSt can help designers deliver significantly better visuals, more fun, and higher gameplay quality than designing without UTs and that classic UTs do not provide this significant advantage. Our interviews support the idea that BioSt provides more nuanced game design improvement. The design implication is that a game designed with the BioSt method will result in high gameplay quality.

Games user research: practice, methods, and applications

Games User Research (GUR) is an emerging field that ties together Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Game Development. The GUR community has rapidly evolved over the past few years (spawning an International Game Developers Association Special Interest Group). In this workshop, we are investigating different methodologies currently used in practice. We will highlight benefits and drawbacks in assessing game design issues hoping to gain insights into player experience. The outcome will be a collection of best practices online, showing practitioners and researchers how to apply these techniques. We will also peer-review and publish extended versions of paper submissions in a Cognitive Science Research Papers Special Issue on GUR. This will extend the discussion of topics beyond the workshop and serve as a platform for future work.

Biometric storyboards: visualising game user research data

Player experience is difficult to evaluate and report, especially using quantitative methodologies in addition to observations and interviews. One step towards tying quantitative physiological measures of player arousal to player experience reports are Biometric Storyboards (BioSt). They can visualise meaningful relationships between a players physiological changes and game events. This paper evaluates the usefulness of BioSt to the game industry. We presented the Biometric Storyboards technique to six game developers and interviewed them about the advantages and disadvantages of this technique.

Weak inter-rater reliability in heuristic evaluation of video games

Heuristic evaluation promises to be a low-cost usability evaluation method, but is fraught with problems of subjective interpretation, and a proliferation of competing and contradictory heuristic lists. This is particularly true in the field of games research where no rigorous comparative validation has yet been published. In order to validate the available heuristics, a user test of a commercial game is conducted with 6 participants in which 88 issues are identified, against which 146 heuristics are rated for relevance by 3 evaluators. Weak inter-rater reliability is calculated with Krippendorffs Alpha of 0.343, refuting validation of any of the available heuristics. This weak reliability is due to the high complexity of video games, resulting in evaluators interpreting different reasonable causes and solutions for the issues, and hence the wide variance in their ratings of the heuristics.

Lightweight Games User Research for Indies and Non-Profit Organizations

The Games User Research (GUR) community has thrived at CHI with four workshops and a course since CHI 2012; all of these were well attended. In line with the #chi4good spirit this year, the GUR field must advance towards demographics that will benefit from GUR but are currently underrepresented in the community: Small, independent developers, non-profit organizations, and academics that create mobile games, games for health or change, or educational games. This workshop will be a think tank for participants to construct collective knowledge, share and discuss. We plan to discuss topics online beyond the workshop via the International Game Developer Associations Special Interest Group on GUR, which serves as a basis for disseminating workshop outcomes and further discussion.

Improving Gameplay with Game Metrics and Player Metrics

Designing and developing video games is typically a long and demanding process. The overall aim of developing a game that is enjoyable and rewarding to play for everyone is a complex one due to the diversity of players who may potentially interact with the game. Understanding how players interact and behave during gameplay is of vital importance to developers. An accurate understanding of the gameplay experience during development can help identify and resolve any potential problem areas before release, leading to a better player experience and arguably, greater game review scores and sales. There are two main sources from which potentially useful data can be extracted: the video game (game metrics), and the player (player metrics).

Assessing user preference of video game controller button settings

Only very few studies exist linking preference in controller usage to physiological effects and user experience (UX). While many games already feature different controller layouts, there is a lack of research on whether giving control to participants over their button choices affects their UX in the game. In our study, participants were given two predetermined button configurations for playing FIFA 12. Their preferences were assessed through electroencephalography (EEG) and a Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ). Our results show no significant difference in EEG intensity between participants using their preferred or non-preferred button settings. Preference also appears to have no significant effect on subjective feelings assessed by the GEQ. We have identified three distinct factors that may have potentially compromised this study. These findings could help to structure future research in this area.