My CHI 2011 papers

I put my CHI 2011 workshop papers online and updated  my publications page.

Player Types and Gamification

This started as a critique of the idea of player types in general and especially the mindless application of Bartle’s 4 types, especially in gamification.

This paper presents a brief history of the concept of player types starting with Bartles’s work on MUDs and continuing to more recent, empirical research. Player types are not a defined concept and any categorization of players or users needs to occur within the context of a particular application or domain. Play-personas are suggested as a useful tool that can be used to put player type research into practice as part of the design process of gamified systems.

Tactics, Rhythms and Social Game Ethnography

The idea of rhythms and tempos is something that I think is very useful when applied to digital gaming, and gaming in general. Though I don’t have a lot of time to go into it now.

Attention has been paid to the mechanics, economics and business aspects of Social Network Games, however very little research has been carried out on the players themselves. Why and how do people play these games? The games themselves are designed for partial attention situations and as interstitials in the everyday, yet there isn’t any detailed research into the quotidian of social gaming. In this paper I describe de Certeau’s concepts of strategies and tactics, and Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis. These are useful, sensitizing positions with which to carry out ethnographic research into the context and situations of Social Network Game play.

Workshop on Gamification: Using Game Design Elements in Non-Game Contexts

Finally the extended abstract for the gamification workshop I helped run.

“Gamification” is an informal umbrella term for the use of video game elements in non-gaming systems to improve user experience (UX) and user engagement. The recent introduction of ‘gamified’ applications to large audiences promises new additions to the existing rich and diverse research on the heuristics, design patterns and dynamics of games and the positive UX they provide. However, what is lacking for a next step forward is the integration of this precise diversity of research endeavors. Therefore, this workshop brings together practitioners and researchers to develop a shared understanding of existing approaches and findings around the gamification of information systems, and identify key synergies, opportunities, and questions for future research.