usability testing article

This article on usability testing is primarily focuses on the usefulness of these tests when performed on others outside of the development teams. While we are not specifically looking at usability testing as part of our study, however for our own usability testing pre-study it does have some bearing. Having read the article it becomes clear that in addition to usability tests performed by the group in-house, we also need to have an outside tester make an evaluation of the level(s) when they are completed and under development, as other persons views on our level(s) will likely be different than our own.

Do usability expert evaluation and test provide
novel and useful data for game development?
Sauli Laitinen, Adage Corporation, Issue 2, Vol. 1, February 2006, pp. 64-75
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.100.1694&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Running head research paper

This particular research paper has some very nice links to both immersion as well as research using both quantitative and qualitative types of data. The paper actually relates to three different sets of experiments that were undertaken, each producing different kinds and amounts of quantitative and qualitative data. When looking at the questionnaire that this particular study used, it becomes fairly clear that our group will need to have both differently formed and additional questions. While surveys can be used to gather both kinds of data, the survey in this paper has been used for quantitative data, using a multiple choice answer, but lacks any discursive questions which could be used for gathering additional quantitative data. While the survey used in this paper is not ideal, the concept of using multiple methods of measurement for multiple sets of results from each tester is defiantly a something that the team will be undertaking at the testing phase.

RUNNING HEAD: IMMERSION IN GAMES
Anna Cox, UCL Interaction Centre, University College London

26/10/10

After the games business lecture today the whole group met up in the library to discuss the state of the literature review and where the current part of the project stands. the outcome of this has been that I personally need to actually post the research summaries that will be used for this piece on my personal blog.

Thus far there are several promising articles, one specifically which I will defiantly be using, which has also been utilised by the rest of the group as the contents of this particular paper cover a fairly broad spectrum, including my own personal assigned research area; quantitative and qualitative research results, and evaluation. in addition to this, I will also need to find a useful paper for usability testing for tomorrow, at which point all the collected summaries will be re-written into one single item for the literature review.

Summaries for papers which I will actually be using for the review will follow shortly.

13/10/10 lecture&group meeting

Initially the plan for today was to get a lot of the literature review, however upon discussion it was decided that we would spend an additional week gaining resources to improve the depth of our research. as such I personally will need to do further research into qualitative/quantitative reasearch methods and evaluation. in addition to this, each team member by next week needs to complete a short evaluation and compression of their best sources ready for evaluation for the litterature review next week. website update taken care of by myself, just adding in all the blog links so that minimum functions are covered.