User Experience has become a major research area in human-computer interaction. The area of game design and development has been focusing on user experience evaluation for the last 20 years, although a clear definition of user experience is still to be established.

The contributors to this volume explore concepts that enhance the overall user experience in games such as fun, playability, flow, immersion and many others. Presenting an overview of current practice from academia and industry in game development, the book shows a variety of methods that can be used to evaluate user experience in games, not only during game-play but also before and after the game play.

Evaluating User Experiences in Games:

Presents a broad range of user experience evaluation methods and concepts;

Provides insights on when to apply the various user experience evaluation methods in the development cycle and shows how methods can be also applied to a more general HCI context;

Includes new research on evaluating user experience during game play and after; and social play;

Describes new evaluation methods;

Details methods that are also applicable for exertion games or tabletop games.

This comprehensive book will be welcomed by researchers and practitioners in the field.

Content Level » Research

Keywords » Usability - User experience

Related subjects » HCI

Table of contents

Part I. Introduction to Evaluation of UX

1. User Experience Evaluation in Entertainment

Regina Bernhaupt

Part II. Frameworks and Methods

2. Enabling Social Play: A Framework for Design and Evaluation

Katherine Isbister

3. Prescence, Involvement and Flow in Digital Games

Jari Takatalo, Jukka Häkkinen, Miikka Lehtonen, Jyrki Kaistinen and Göte Nyman

4. Assessing the Core Element of the Gaming Experience

Eduardo H Calvillo-Gámez, Paul Cairns and Anna L Cox

5. The Life and Tools of a Game Designer

Emily Brown

6. Investigating Experiences and Attitutdes Towards Videogames using a Semantic Differential Methodology

Philippe Lemay and Martin Maheux Lessard

7. Video Game Development and User Experience

Graham McAllister and Gareth R White

Part III. User Experience - Decomposed

8. User Experience Design for Inexperienced Gamers: GAP - Game Approachability Principles

Heather Desurvire and Charlotte Wiberg

9. Digital Games, the Aftermath: Qualitative Insights into Post Game Experiences

Karolien Poels, Wijnand IJsselsteijn, Yvonne de Kort and Bart Van Iersel

10. Evaluating User Experience Factors using Experiments: Expressive Artificial Faces Embedded in Contexts

Michael Lankes, Regina Bernhaupt and Manfred Tscheligi

Part IV. User Experience - Evaluating Special Aspects of Games

11. Evaluating Exertion Games

Floyd Mueller and Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze

12. Beyond the Gamepad: HCI and Game Controller Design and Evaluation

Michael Brown, Aidan Kehoe, Jurek Kirakowski and Ian Pitt

13. Using Heuristics to Evaluate the Overall User Experience of Video Games and Advanced Interaction Games

Christina Koeffel, Wolfgang Hochleitner, Jakob Leitner, Michael Haller, Arjan Geven and Manfred Tscheligi