Evaluating Affective User-Centered Design of Video Games Using Qualitative Methods

Abstract

In recent years, researchers and practitioners in the human-computer interaction (HCI) community have placed a lot of focus in developing methods and processes for use in the gaming field. Affective user-centered design (AUCD) plays an important role in the game industry because it promotes emotional and mental communication, hence improving the interaction modes between users and video games. This paper looks at the development of a suitable AUCD guideline to determine if the expressed emotion, semantics, and mental concept of a tangible and intangible video gaming interface are well received by its intended users. Approaching AUCD in video games requires investigating multiple data to obtain a reliable data especially when assessing and interpreting affect and emotion. They present a challenge due to many ambiguities related to affect definition and measuring affective emotion can be very tedious due to its complexity and unpredictability. In this paper, we describe the methods and techniques used to assess affective user-centered design in video games. We also discuss our approaches within the context of existing affective gaming and user-centered design theory and data gathering procedures, including the factors affecting internal and external validity and the data analysis techniques.

Analysis of the Usefulness of a Serious Game to Raise Awareness about Mental Health Problems in a Sample of High School and University Students: Relationship with Familiarity and Time Spent Playing Video Games

“…Indeed, students gave the game a higher score for usefulness than for entertainment. In any case, in future studies it would be interesting to examine this point further, perhaps resorting to a qualitative methodology that could provide more information on the opinion of the participants related to these aspects [29].…”

Proposal of quantitative and qualitative metrics to assess affective user-centered design of video games

“…So, for the game industry, usability is essential, but not sufficient to assess the user experience of a product as a whole, since it deals with pleasure and emotions, or, in other words, with affect [3]. By observing the list proposed by Ng et al [1] shown in the left column of Table 1, it is reasonable to say that much of the subjective experience from games is based on options, i.e., features whose usage can be customized or measured in some way. Thus, the players' choices, both before and during the game, can be monitored in background so it does not interrupt the game's flow.…”

“…It is an automatic in-background track of players' actions and reactions in a gaming experience towards several options and situations deliberately added to it. The idea is to evaluate ten groups of five individuals, divided per age range and gender, in order to learn each audience's behaviors and preferences on the affective game design components highlighted in [1], through purely numerical indicators from within the videogame, with no human observation, as in the related works, nor bio-signal processing. The game for the playtest is yet to be designed, but due to artistic limitations and in order to comprehend the metrics proposed here, it will probably be a short 2D-RPG-adventure game.…”

“…The affective game design components that will be assessed along this experiment are all listed and somewhat extensively discussed in the research article by Ng et al [1]. After interviews and observations of a gameplay session, the researchers collected feedback to determine the most relevant game design components, as shown in the left column of Table 1, along with other recommendations based also on the literature.…”

Low-Cost Assessment of User eXperience Through EEG Signals

“…Carrera et al [42] used fivechannel EMOTIV and participants played the video game Call of Duty, which aimed to provide an early insight into how playing a video game with an EEG-based BCI would impact a participant's mood as compared with a traditional video gaming setup. Commercial video games have been used to analyse emotions, including Little Big Planet2 [43], Counter Strike [32], DX-Ball [36] and Quaker3 Arena [44].…”