Games User Research: Driving Development with Actionable Insights

Developers both large and small can benefit from an outside perspective given by a game user research, or usability research geared towards games. Indie developers can benefit from adding UX expertise to the development team, while large developers can obtain an outside perspective to compliment and verify findings from internal members of the development team. In this article, we will present three key ways in which game research can maximize a game’s success. 

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Rapid UX Research at Google

How do you conduct impactful user research in a short space of time?

As the manager of a Rapid Research team at Google, I’ve built a team around just that — delivering meaningful insights, fast. My job is to ensure our product teams get the insights they need quickly and effectively. 

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How to Conduct User Research and Build Features

“So, Megan, what do you do?”

What a loaded question, geeze. I do lots of things. I run. I eat. I hang out with my 5 rabbits (yeah, they’re awesome). Everyone asks me this question at every networking event, and I still don’t have a succinct, articulate answer. I usually reply with something along the lines of,

“I do user research and product strategy consulting for early stage startups.” 

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IBM Forecasts Major Advances in Cognitive Computing

IBM on Tuesday released its annual “5 in 5” list of predictions about technological innovations that will change the way we live in the next five years, with the theme this year being cognitive advances in computing that help machines “learn” how to better serve us. 

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Serious Games and the Future of Education

Are serious games the classroom tool of the future? Is the future already here?  The tablet classroom may have once been the stuff of science fiction, but modern developments in technology and brain science may have come together to create a massive change in the way we think about education. 

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SimCityEDU: Using Games for Formative Assessment

As game-based learning gains momentum in education circles, teachers increasingly want substantive proof that games are helpful for learning. The game-makers at the non-profit GlassLab are hoping to do this with the popular video game SimCity.

GlassLab is working with commercial game companies, assessment experts, and those versed in digital classrooms to build SimCityEDU, a downloadable game designed for sixth graders. Scheduled to be be released in the fall of 2013, it builds on SimCity’s city management theme, but provides specific challenges to players in the subject of STEM.

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After-School Program Exposes Students to Virtual Reality

CEDAR FALLS — The teeth of a John Deere combine poke out into a dark theater.

Students raise their arms and try to touch the behemoth as it floats what seems like inches from their faces. But their efforts are futile. Their hands can’t grasp the 3-D image on the screen in front of them. But their imaginations can.

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In ‘Kinect Sesame Street TV’ On Xbox, The TV Talks Back To Kids

NEW YORK (AP) — Elmo, Big Bird and the rest of the “Sesame Street” crew have always talked to kids. Now, they’ll try to have a two-way conversation with their pint-sized audience using Kinect, the motion and voice-sensing controller created by Microsoft.

“Kinect Sesame Street TV,” out Tuesday, is not exactly a video game, though it runs on the Xbox 360 video game system. There are no winners and losers, no real rules to follow and no points to score. If you don’t want to play, that’s fine. Just sit back and watch “Sesame Street,” as kids have for the past 43 years. But if you do play, Grover will count coconuts you’ve thrown, the Count will praise you for standing still and Elmo will catch a talking ball if you throw it to him.

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