Evaluating User Experience in Games: Concepts and Methods - Lirmm

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50 E.H. Calvillo-Gámez et al. have an influence on the user. That is, the evaluation of experience is associated with evaluating enjoyment, fun, pleasure, etc. (Kaye 2007). To evaluate experience, HCI usually focuses on the end result of the experience. The user has a relationship with the object within a specific context (Hassenzahl 2003). From this interaction, the user can isolate or share the experience with more individuals (Forlizzi and Battarbee 2004). Or the experience is just personal and transitory, formed by a series of threads that the users mix together in order to make sense of it (McCarthy and Wright 2004). All these approaches require a close understanding of a user to understand how that particular experience was effected. The explanation cannot be generalisable as it was dependent on an individual sense-making process. The current methods that exist look into the evaluating experience (Light 2006, Mahlke and Thüring 2007, Swallow et al. 2005), while they do offer insight to understand the experience, they do not generate objective knowledge out of it. However, even if experience is personal, it is possible to share it and empathise with it among social groups. In the interaction process, the individual is not focusing on the application at hand, but on the task being done (Heidegger 1927). The actions performed by the individual using the application have resonance in the world (Winograd and Flores 1986), and even if this resonance is particular to the individual, the process of the interaction is common among many individuals. 4.2.2 Definition of User Experience Experience is both the process and outcome of the interaction. And here we build on the theories discussed by Winograd and Flores (1986), Dourish (2001) and McCarthy and Wright (2004). During the interaction process, the different elements that form the experience are blended to form a personal outcome. To formalise the discussion, we propose the following definition for experience, based on Dewey’s definition of experience (Dewey 1938): Experience is both the process and outcome of the interaction of a user with the environment at a given time. In the interaction process, the environment is formed by the goal to be achieved, the tool to be used and the domain in which the interaction is taking place. The domain and tasks are selected by the user, e.g. the user can decide to write a document, this becomes the goal; the domain could be to write the document for college-level class or to be published by a newspaper; the tool could be a personal computer or a PDA, or may even be a typewriter. In order for the user to focus on the task, we identify three properties that have to be present in the application: functional, usable and aesthetically pleasing. The functional quality is the ability of the tool to perform the desired task, e.g. a hammer can be used to nail something to the wall, and so can be a shoe, but not a tomato. Usable relates to how well the properties of the tool match those of the user, using concepts such as effectiveness, efficiency and affordance, e.g. both a hammer and a shoe can be used to nail something to the wall, but a hammer is more usable than a shoe. The final property aesthetics is, in lay
4 Assessing the Core Elements of the Gaming Experience 51 terms, how the tool looks, e.g. given enough options of identically usable hammers for the user to nail the object to the wall, the user would select the most appealing based on aesthetic value. These three properties allow evaluating the application. An application letting the user focuses on the task. It is doing the task which would lead to a positive experience. By looking at the elements that form the process of this interaction between user and task, we are able to understand the common elements of the experiences among many users. Even though the experience at the end is personal, there are common elements in the process of the experience that allow us to compare and share them with other users with similar experiences. User experience is in a feedback loop, as past experiences affect future experiences (Dewey 1938). The resulting experience can create changes in the mood of the person. This could be optimal experiences such as happiness or Flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1990), or at least a sense of satisfaction. Not satisfaction in the classic usability sense of comfort towards using the tool, but as a holistic approach in which the user is able to integrate all the elements of experience while doing a task. The user should feel that all the elements of the experience acted in symphony during the interaction producing a positive experience. So, evaluating the experience can be done by evaluating the elements that are present in the process of the interaction. 4.3 The Experience of Playing Video-games A video-game is a game played with the aid of the computer. The computer can take the role of a game companion, either foe or ally. Also, it can be used as a rule enforcer and to draw the story that covers them. The design of current video-games requires a big enterprise to pull together graphics experts, game designers and story tellers involved in a process of pre/post-productions (McCarthy et al. 2005). But even with all the complexities that are demanded for commercial video-games, they are still designed following the guidelines of the experts. Video-games, from the designer’s point of view, are formed by a three-tier structure: I/O, program and game (Crawford 1984, Rollings and Adams 2003). The I/O structure defines the interaction between the user and the video-game. The program structure details how the game would be implemented at the code level. Game structure defines the objective and rules of the game. The program structure is not discussed in this chapter. The I/O structure is the interface of the program. Looking at the game as a computer interface does not offer any contradictions in terms of what it is expected to provide: an interface that lets the user perform a task efficiently, effectively and with a sense of satisfaction (Federoff 2002). Interfaces are just tools in order to do a task, so there was no reason to expect that this would differ from traditional interfaces. To understand the relation between game and interface, the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics (MDA) model (Hunicke et al. 2004) tries to bridge what the designer is creating with what the player is expecting from the game. The mechanics describes the components of the game, such as representation and
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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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