Continuous and Unobtrusive Capture of User-Player Behaviour and Experience to Assess and Inform Game Design and Development

Abstract Integrated Media Systems Center University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781, USA marsht@usc.edu Shamus P. Smith Department of Computer Science Durham University Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom shamus.smith@durham.ac.uk Kiyoung Yang Computer Science Department University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781, USA kiyoungy@usc.edu Cyrus Shahabi Integrated Media Systems Center & Computer Science Department University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781, USA shahabi@usc.edu We describe a continuous and unobtrusive approach to capture data amassed from user-player interactions with virtual or game environments. Central to this is a tool called ISIS (Immersidata analySIS) to query and identify data of interest and to index events within video recordings of game sessions. Analysis of the associated data and video clips help us to understand user-players’ behaviour and experience to assess and inform the design and development of games. ISIS supports six queries to identify: actions and activities, breaks in interaction caused by reflection or ineffective and problematic design, navigation problems caused by user disorientation, and events or tasks that are the most difficult to perform in a game. In the development of an educational serious game, we illustrate how our approach can help inform redesign.

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