Finding Out What They Think: A Rough Primer To User Research, Part 2

[The following is the second of two articles by college professor and researcher Ben Lewis-Evans on games user research methodology (see Part 1, which covered focus groups, heuristics, and questionnaires, as well as giving a grounding in the topic of user research in general. In this article, Lewis-Evans covers interviews, observational methods (including think out loud and contextual inquiry), game metrics, and biometrics.]

Interviews

Much like a questionnaire — a topic covered in the last installment — an interview is for collecting subjective data. However, the face-to-face nature of an interview means that you can be more interactive in your data collection, which if done correctly, can lead to very rich data. However, it is also obviously quite time-consuming, and it is harder to analyze and quantify the data you get at the end.

The quality of what you get out of an interview will also depend greatly on your own skill as an interviewer, so here are some tips.

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Gesture Control System Uses Sound Alone

SoundWave lets an ordinary laptop function like a Kinect sensor.

When you learned about the Doppler Effect in high school physics class—the wave frequency shift that occurs when the source of the wave is moving, easily illustrated by a passing ambulance—you probably didn’t envision it helping control your computer one day.

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Dolby Atmos Surround Sound Technology Could Transform Video Games

Dolby Laboratories introduces Dolby Atmos, surround sound that can create terrifyingly realistic noise environments.

Dolby Laboratories wants to scare the crap out of you. The famous sound system designer unveiled its latest surround sound technology on Monday, and its implications for entertainment, particularly horror, are hair-raising. Dolby Atmos will be implemented first in movie theaters but the goal is to eventually bring the technology into the home where it will find its place in video games.

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Finding Out What They Think: A Rough Primer To User Research, Part 1

[In this first article in a new series, college professor and user research Ben Lewis-Evans takes a look at different methods of game user research, offering up a handy guide to different ways you can collect useful information about your game.]

This article, and its forthcoming followup, is intended to give a rough idea to developers of several different methods that can be used in games user research.

However, many, many books have been written on research methodology and I cannot cover everything. Therefore these two articles cannot be taken as completely comprehensive.

In the first of the articles I will be covering a few general points about Games User Research and then discussing three methods, focus groups, heuristic evaluation and questionnaires in some detail.

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