Evaluating First Experiences with an Educational Computer Game: A multi-Method Approach

This paper presents our evaluation approach for a specific case study, namely the evaluation of an early prototype of an educational game with children aged between 12 and 14 years. The main goal of this initial evaluation study was to explore children’s first impressions and experiences of the game on the one hand and to assess the students’ ideas and wishes for the further development of the game on the other hand. The main challenge for the evaluation activities was the selection of the appropriate methodological approach, taking into account children as a special user group. We opted for a combination of different, mainly qualitative and explorative methods that were reported beneficial for work with children in the human-computer interaction (HCI) field. By presenting our multi-method approach, in particular the different steps and procedure within our study, other researchers can get inspirations for follow up activities when evaluating games with children as well as benefit from our experiences in exploring more collaborative methods and methodological combinations

INTERACT 2015 Adjunct Proceedings. 15th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 14-18 September 2015, Bamberg, Germany

INTERACT is among the world’s top conferences in Human-Computer Interaction. Starting with the first INTERACT conference in 1990, this conference series has been organised under the aegis of the Technical Committee 13 on Human-Computer Interaction of the UNESCO International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). This committee aims at developing the science and technology of the interaction between humans and computing devices. The 15th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - INTERACT 2015 took place from 14 to 18 September 2015 in Bamberg, Germany. The theme of INTERACT 2015 was "Connection.Tradition.Innovation". This volume presents the Adjunct Proceedings - it contains the position papers for the students of the Doctoral Consortium as well as the position papers of the participants of the various workshops

Factory workers' ordinary user experiences : an overlooked perspective

Experiences with technology often are described as exciting and outstanding, for instance, in relation to novel technologies at home or at work. In this article, we aim to complement this perspective by emphasizing people’s mundane and ordinary experiences with technology, that is, unremarkable experiences happening in the background of people’s attention. Based on our investigations of user experience in a semiconductor factory, we show how such ordinary experiences are substantial in workers’ everyday interactions with technology, which are mainly shaped by repetitive activities and routines. However, current conceptions of user experience seem to overlook those mundane experiences and how they can contribute to positive experiences with technology, as well as work engagement in the factory. In this article, we describe how ordinary experiences can be understood and described to amend current user experience conceptions by discussing theoretical, methodological, and design consequences.peerReviewe

Experience characters: a design tool for communicating mobile phone experiences to designers

Different methods, techniques and tools exist for supporting design activities in a user-centered design process. Due to the increasing relevance of experience-centered design, the need to advance existing design methods and tools becomes evident. Within this paper we present "experience characters" as a design tool for communicating a richer understanding of mobile phone experiences towards designers. We conducted a qualitative text analysis study of written experience reports from an online forum in the tradition of grounded theory. Major experience types were grouped into categories and further transformed into five fictive characters that are easy to remember and likely to invoke empathy in design. Thus, designers' communication on and understanding of mobile phone experiences are supported. We describe in detail the steps taken for analysing experience reports and developing the experience characters, including relevant properties for informing and supporting an experience-centered design process

User Experience Research in the Semiconductor Factory: A Contradiction?

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceNo doubt, user experience (UX) has become of high relevance within the HCI community. Within this paper, we present initial results from a qualitative study on UX in the factory context, more precisely in a semiconductor factory. We highlight the challenges of performing UX research in this particular context and the usefulness of probes for collecting feedback from operators in the factory context within in a limited timespan. The results provide an initial rich description of the operator’s everyday experiences in a semiconductor factory. From a designer’s point of view, this allows for a more empathic interaction design informed by a subjective operator perspective

Insights from User Experience Research in the Factory: What to Consider in Interaction Design

Part 1: MethodologiesInternational audienceDuring the past few years we investigated humans’ work in a semiconductor factory, both in relation to digital and non-digital artifacts. With this paper, we provide an overview of aspects that are relevant in production environments. In particular, we present factors accounting for workers’ experience as well as influences on their user experience (UX). Based on a meta-interpretation approach, we analyzed our previous studies on the basis of publications that presented our previous research results. In total, we annotated 21 publications, which reported results from qualitative (e.g., ethnographies, interviews) and quantitative approaches (e.g., questionnaires). Overall, this work contributes to an orientation for designers and researchers regarding the interplay between user, system and context in a factory environment by pointing out relevant aspects of and influences on workers’ experiences

EMotion: Retrospective in-car user experience evaluation

Well-established self-reporting methods in HCI such as the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) prove rather limited for sampling in-car experiences, as they distract the driver from the primary task of driving. In this work we present eMotion, a mobile application that provides a lightweight alternative to Experience Sampling. eMotion uses the front and back facing cameras of a mobile device with the goal of unobtrusively capturing drivers' facial expressions along with 10-sec videos of the outside landscape, the location, and the speed of the car at the moment of sampling. All these logs are later presented to the user with the goal of helping her recall her experience (e.g. experienced stress) at that moment. We report on the design of eMotion as well as a study design, with which we will try to assess the validity of the elicited data

Experiential Perspectives on Road Congestions

Commuting can be perceived as both ‘relaxing’ and ‘stressful’. An important cause for stress is getting stuck in traffic, which can – especially when unexpected – quickly turn commuting into a negative experience, often associated with frustration and the feeling of wasting time. Congestion experiences do not need to be frustrating and annoying. In our research, we aim to generate design solutions for turning the negative experiences into positive ones. We foster the experiential perspective on road congestions, and go beyond current automotive HCI research, which mainly focuses on safety, functionality, and usability. In this paper, we present our work-in progress on characterizing congestion experiences and needs, explored in a design workshop outlining future design directions for supporting positive experiences