Towards a PX frameworkAnders Drachen, Lennart Nacke

Content

What is UX and PX?

Games: not productivity tools

Towards a PX framework?

Background

User experience in games is gaining momentum (or no EPEX11)

Past decade a ton of new research and industry attention

Research touches upon a number of fields (HCI, CS, Neuroscience, Media, Psychology, AI, Informatics, Data Mining,Physiology etc.)

What is PX?

Terminology? (non-existent)

Player Experience – User Experience in Games – Gameplay Experience – Game Experience – Play Experience….

Let´s please just agree on something – anything!

Here we use play experience

What is PX?

PX is something that occurs before, during and after we play games …

Most interest in the ”during” - PX in runtime:

Wow this is cool! I´m bored …S¤&% run! Run! Run!Mhmmm … night elves …… deep concentration …

What is PX?

ISO 9241-210 defines user experience as:

"a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service".

User experience is subjective and focused on the use of something.

What is PX?

Additional ISO notes:

User experience includes all the users' emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviors and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use -> temporal factor.

Three factors that influence user experience: system properties, user state and the context of use.

What is PX? Example: John is

playing RIFT in a net café - what affects his PX?

Context: The physical properties of the café

Social: The influence of other people present physically and those in the RIFT environment

John

RIFT

What is PX? Temporal: the duration fo play and when he

plays, constraints on time (10 minutes to server maintenance…)

Infrastructural: Server breakdowns, network outages

Task: The specific task of playing RIFT is an example of a two-way task

System: The RIFT GUI, game system and the cafés hosting system

What is PX?

The sum of experiences: Using one aspect of RIFT will impact on the

experience of other aspects. The overall PX is not just a sum of small

experiences – some enhance each other, some are more important to John, etc.

PX is the end result of all of these incluences = emotional state and attitudes of the user (towards RIFT)

(often at a given point in time, e.g. after a playtest).

What is PX? But wait, there is more!:

Aspects outside the specific interaction period potentially important: Brand recognition, pricing, peer opinions, etc.

Often research focus on: PX during interaction (emotion evaluation) long-term/episoidic PX (attitudes)

Methods to evaluate these temporal levels vary – as do design approaches

What is PX?

That is a lot of things to consider when playtesting or evaluating a game!

And now it get´s worse …

Games are different beasts than productivity applications: PX is king.

PX optimized, complex,time

How are games different?

PX optimized

Focus on entertainment, not productivity (usability)

Every aspect of a game must be made to optimize PX

Usability likely assists PX

How are games different?Complexity

Contemporary commercial games can be massively complex pieces of software

Thousands of potential user actions

Users can even change games! (modding)

How are games different?Time

The temporal dimension is central, both for design and assessment – measures of PX are heavily influenced by the temporal dimension

Towards a PX framework

The challenge is clear – how to proceed?

Towards a PX framework

Knowledge from UX, UX design and usability

Theoretical models of PX – none are inclusive of all aspects

Empirical research – hard data on PX - but situation-specific

Towards a PX framework

Get the pieces organized …

Important dimensions:

Time

Abstraction

Agents

Towards a PX frameworkTwo important agents in play:

Designer creates the game with the intent of creating an experience

Player interacts with the game and experiences something, but framed in the context of use etc.

Towards a PX framework3 levels of abstraction:

System: Concretely graspable and technical game system experience

Player: Individual player experience that influences and is influenced by the perceptive and operational actions of the player

Context: Processed experience. Abstract experience level, shaped by the player interacting with others, technologies, brands, etc.

Towards a PX framework

Time operatesat all levels of abstraction

Past experiences influence the present

Current experiences influence the future

Towards a PX framework

Assemblingthe dimensions

Towards a PX framework

And we still have not talked about the actualElements of PX (emotions,attitudes , flow, etc.)

EngagementFunFlowChallengeEmotionAttitudes…

Thank you