Tse-Yun Chaung
UX Research/Design
Information Seeking
Understanding the Criteria Game Players Used to Assess Game-Related Information on the Web
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Project Background
Game-related information such as trailers and comments from gamers is an important indicator for video game players to make a decision to buy and play a game or not.
However, there are only few studies that reported findings of gamers’ information needs and didn't provide an in-depth understanding of how users assessed game-related information before making a decision to purchase a game.
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As a user researcher and a passionate gamer, I chose this topic as my master dissertation and hoped to benefit the community of video game players.
Timeline
Jul. - Sep. 2017
Team Members
This is an individual Project.
I was responsible for all the research and test.
Goal
To understand how video game players assess the game-related information and behaviors in information seeking for purchasing video games.
My Role
As a user researcher in this project, I was responsible to figure out what criteria do gamers use to assess game-related information and sources on the web in different contexts for purchasing video games.
I did a paper study to understand the process behaviors of information seeking and information searching on the web, and how these applied in the discipline of video games so far. I designed a mixed-methods user study including observation of users' on-screen activity, think-aloud protocols, and semi-structured interviews.
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After testing, I applied the thematic analysis to transfer the collected data into meaningful insights. I read all the transcripts from the participants and grouped the coded data into different categories or themes. In the end, I developed the wireframes as recommendations to improve the interface design for digital distribution systems of video gamelike Steam.
Process
Paper Study & Define Research Questions
I reviewed the papers in 3 disciplines including the background and the current state about information seeking and searching, relevance assessment, and how these are developing in the video game domain. This research helps me scale down my project and focus on specific research questions for a 3-month project.
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There are two research questions defined as:
1. What criteria do people use to assess game-related information and sources on the web in order to make a decision to purchase or not.
2. How different types of information seeking tasks(in different contexts) may influence the way gamers assess game-related information and sources on the web.
The video games are defined as below to scale down the project as well:
1. The games can be purchased for use in personal computers and laptops, which means PC games only.
2. These types of games can be purchased online from mainstream game distribution platforms like Steam.
User Testing
To answer the research questions, I designed a mixed-method user study as a way to triangulate the collected data.
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Through background questionnaire before testing, I recruited the participants who had used the digital game distribution platform Steam at least once during the last 2 months to purchase or play games.
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During the user testing, the participants were going to finish three information-seeking tasks based on different contexts, which includes:
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Background task
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Decision-making task
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List-making task
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The participants were encouraged to think aloud throughout the test so I could observe their behaviors and take notes at the same time to gather insights.
The follow-up interview with each test helped me to have further explanations about the behavior during the test.
Thematic Analysis
I applied the thematic analysis to transfer the data into meaningful insights. Through reading the transcripts from the participants repeatedly and immersing myself, I am able to code and group the data into different categories or themes. They showed the patterns and the relationship about the criteria within specific tasks to search game-related information for purchasing games.
Research Result
To answer the first research question, there are 4 key groups of criteria or themes video gamers would apply when assessing game-related information cues to make decisions whether to purchase or not:
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Visual information (e.g. trailers/gameplay videos, screenshots, covers/thumbnails)
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Descriptive information (e.g. features, technical information, numeric information, names)
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User-generated information (e.g. overall and recent user reviews, comments, tags)
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Cost-related information (e.g. price, total playtime)
Beside the game-related information itself, the result also showed that what the criteria do players use to assess sources of information on the web:
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The position of search results hits in a search engine or a content service (e.g. Google Engine, Youtube)
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Titles & URL which gamers were familiar with or trusted (e.g. Youtube, PC Game magazine)
In the last, the context also influences the way gamers to assess the information and sources on the web:
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Gamers searched for information outside ​Steam platform to get more inspirations of the titles/genres of games in List-making task while Background tasks have most interactions with Steam based on its rich and reliable information.
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Most information is evaluated in Background tasks in order to find as much as possible information about a specific game that gamers were interested in purchasing as opposed to List-making task which's purchases are not immediately done.
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Gamers evaluated more frequently on the information in Decision-making task in order to compare it between 3 games.​
Design Recommendation
Based on the research results, I produced the following wireframes as design recommendations to improve the interface design for digital distribution systems of the video game like Steam:
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Integrating various types of visual information such as user-created or developer's gameplay videos on the game store page.
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Good visibility for key textual information with pictures in the descriptive information.
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Display information about the degree of similarity relating to the preferences of video games between users and reviewers.
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Official information about the estimated total playtime of review writers should be provided.​
Reflection
It is a great experience to apply and integrate the knowledge of UX learned from the postgrad course into my interesting topic - video game. I now have the ability to correctly define research questions, independently plan the research methods and finally prove and answer them.