Evaluating User Experience in Games: Concepts and Methods - Lirmm

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48 E.H. Calvillo-Gámez et al. overview of video-games and user experience in order to familiarise the reader with such concepts. Last, the objective and overview of the whole chapter are presented. 4.1.1 Introduction to Video-games A video-game is, at its most basic level, the implementation of a game in a computerbased console that uses some type of video output. Providing a formal definition of a video-game was one of the first challenges that game studies faced. Since many things can be considered a game, the following definition is used: A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable (p. 36) (Juul 2005). We extend the definition by specifying that the rules are covered by a story, as suggested by Koster (2005). The key part in the above definition is that the player “exerts effort”. In other words, the user of the video-game has an active role in the interaction process. Thus, when discussing the experience of playing video-games, we are referring to the process of interaction between player and video-game. Our focus is not on the creation, implementation or design of the video-game. Nor is it the motivation of the user to engage with a particular game or the psychological implications that the user may have after engaging with it. The focus is, as we have called it, the gaming experience, the experience of playing video-games on a one-toone basis of the interaction between player and game. This concept will be untangled as we move forward within the chapter. First, in order to understand what we mean by experience, we proceed with a discussion of the concept of user experience. 4.1.2 Introduction to User Experience The concept of user experience is understood as the subjective relationship between user and application (McCarthy and Wright 2004). It goes beyond the usability of the application, focusing on the personal outcome that the user gets from interacting with the application while performing a task. Considering user experience only as a personal or subjective outcome is problematic within the scope of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge allows us to generalise about our understanding of the world. If we identify the phenomenon being studied as personal, then it would not be possible to provide a general description of the phenomenon. For this reason, unlike video-games, we do not provide a current definition for user experience. Rather, we will provide a definition which we build and use to understand the experience of playing video-games.
4 Assessing the Core Elements of the Gaming Experience 49 4.1.3 Overview of the Chapter We divided the chapter into six sections. First, we present a definition for user experience and then we look at how user experience relates to the experience of playing video-games. We proceed by presenting a qualitative study for identifying a theory for the gaming experience. We then present a model and a questionnaire, which is included in the Appendix, based on the theory. Then the theory is used in an example to differentiate among two different gaming experiences. Finally, we present concluding comments. 4.2 The Concept of User Experience As we have discussed above, defining and understanding the concept of User Experience as only personal or subjective seem to be insufficient for providing a scientific approach. In this section, we present a definition of user experience that helps in bringing the concept of user experience towards an objective understanding. The discussion is grounded in different concepts about user experience, from the colloquial use to the different uses within Human Computer Interaction and philosophy. 4.2.1 Understanding Experience In our everyday life, we usually do not need further explanation when talking about experiences. In the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Experience 2009), experience is defined as something intrinsic to human life. Every activity that a human performs constitutes and produces an experience; it is both constituent and product. Experience is the result of the individual interacting with the environment (Dewey 1938). In Human Computer Interaction (HCI), the term designing for experience is about considering the user, the task and the context when designing a computer application (Buxton 2007). But as experience is part of the human everyday life, evaluating experience is not as clear-cut as designing for experience appears to be. Experience is defined as personal and subjective, so evaluating experience is about evaluating a subjective appreciation of the user. Evaluating experience places the emphasis on going beyond usability by looking at the relation between the user and the task. Usability is how an application is implemented to let the user perform a task effectively and efficiently; the main focus is productivity, to let the user do the tasks with good quality at an optimal time. Secondary goals are user preference and satisfaction (Bevan 1995). It is the evaluation of this relationship between the user with task and context mediated by the application (Beaudouin-Lafon 2004). Preece et al. (2002) define experience as how the interaction feels to the users; an application taps into experience, when during the interaction process, factors such as fun, enjoyment, pleasure or aesthetics
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Human-Computer Interaction Series E
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Regina Bernhaupt Editor Evaluating
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For Philippe
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viii Foreword Chapter 3, Presence I
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x Foreword personality which evolve
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Contents Part I Introduction to Eva
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Contributors Regina Bernhaupt IRIT,
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Contributors xvii Manfred Tscheligi
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xx About the Authors Emily Brown is
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Index A Advanced interaction games,
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