What's my method?: a game show on games

ABSTRACT

What's My Method? is the game show that asks the question, "How do you user-test games?" The goal of this session is to highlight important differences between user research methods for games and productivity software in an instructive and engaging format. Emotion measurement scenarios are presented to the contestants and audience as questions in a fictional game show. Three games researchers "compete" to propose the best methodology to research thorny questions from real games. The audience acts as the judge, deciding how many points to award contestants for their answers.

REFERENCES

• 1: Csikszentmihalyi, M., Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York, NY, USA, 1990.
• 2: Randy J. Pagulayan , Kevin Keeker , Dennis Wixon , Ramon L. Romero , Thomas Fuller, User-centered design in games, The human-computer interaction handbook: fundamentals, evolving technologies and emerging applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 2002
• 3: Jonathan Sykes , Simon Brown, Affective gaming: measuring emotion through the gamepad, CHI '03 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/765891.765957]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.8 PERSONAL COMPUTING
      K.8.0 General
          Subjects: Games

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

General Terms:
Experimentation, Measurement

Keywords:
fun, games, hedonics, playability, usability methods