CFP | Proposal | Abstract

Call for Participation

Video games have a history of being used to study phenomena in HCI and other disciplines. They offer an excellent way to motivate participants in HCI studies, and by using online casual games researchers can potentially access hundreds of participants. The use of video games as research tools is becoming more widespread in areas such as addiction, user experience, immersion, strategy, decision making, etc. In this workshop we are interested in identifying the range and characteristics of the current use of video games as research instruments. Unlike the development of games for entertainment or serious games, the workshop will focus on the use of games to study more general phenomena (although this may itself have applications to video games).

The workshop will bring together a diverse selection of research that uses video games in order to develop a better understanding of the specific issues, challenges and opportunities that they provide, and to demonstrate how games can be used as an effective part of research. The workshop should motivate researchers to use video games, but also to learn from the experiences of other research areas.

We invite researchers in all disciplines that use video games as research instruments to submit a four page position paper in which you describe: the general problem your research addresses, how and why video games are used, an overview of results and a discussion of experiences and issues specific to using video games. Further information can be found in the workshop website: http://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/ people/e.calvillo/ws_ videogames

Feel free to address any questions or informal enquiries about submissions to Eduardo H. Calvillo-Gámez ( e.calvillo-at-upslp.edu.mx )

The deadline to submit papers is January, 6^th 2010.

Proposal

Abstract

The use of video games as research instruments is becoming more widespread in HCI and related disciplines.  We propose a CHI 2010 workshop that will bring together researchers from diverse backgrounds to share experiences and expertise in using video games as instruments.

Workshop Overview

In this workshop we are interested in addressing how video games are used as stimuli, to study concepts and phenomena in different areas of HCI and related disciplines. We hope to draw together the diverse experiences of researchers working with games.

The workshop will focus on research that uses games to contribute to an understanding of more general phenomena, such as user experience, human error, addiction, almost any topic that is not aimed exclusively (or at all) at the development of games for entertainment or education.

The objective of the workshop is to share expertise, experience and research methodologies on the effective use of video games as research instruments. During the workshop the participants will present research focusing on the use of the video games as instruments. The outcome of the workshop would be to identify the characteristics of video games being exploited across research areas, and an understanding of the requirements and possibilities of video games as instruments.

From an HCI perspective, the importance of understanding video games as part of the experimental setting is that they offer a rich interaction, which makes them work as effective research instruments.  What is it about interacting with games that makes them such a valuable research tool?  This is an HCI question we want to initially address within this workshop.

Conducting the Workshop

Before

The call for papers will be distributed via a mailing list for different interest groups, especially those related to human-computer interaction, but also groups with interests on Addiction, Decision Making, Business and Technology, User Experience etc. The main targets for participants are HCI researchers, computer scientists, psychologists and people who would also have an interest in the main conference.  However, we will actively recruit (using mailing lists, targeting research groups, and personal contacts) from a wider range of disciplines; with the expectation that a small number of participants from disciplines new to CHI will attend.   For example, medical researchers, economists, social scientists, linguists, biologists (protein folding as a game).

A web site would be created to host the call for papers and another for the workshop information.

The workshop will be open for 15-20 participants. In order to participate, participants must submit a 4 page paper stating which general problem their research addresses, how and why video games are used, an overview of results and a discussion of the issues specific to using games. It would be expected that only one author of the paper would participate in the workshop; only in case of available space would a co-author also participate. Papers will be submitted and reviewed anonymously. The deadline to submit papers will be January 6^th 2010.

The selection of the papers will be done by the organising committee based on the merits of the paper in accordance with the established objectives. Participants will be notified by January 20^th 2010 if their papers were accepted or not.

All the papers will be compiled and available online for the participants of the workshop prior to the event.

During

The workshop would be held for one day (6 hours) and divided into four sessions.

1.5hrs: The first session will be dedicated to introduce the workshop, requiring participants to present their positions paper (approximately 5 minutes each).

1.5hrs: In the second session participants will be divided into groups to discuss the different characteristics of video games, used in their own experiences in order to identify common ground, key differences and unexplored possibilities.

1.5hrs: In the third session the groups will present the conclusions and insights obtained from their individual discussions.

1.5hrs: The fourth and final session will be a general discussion in order to reach general conclusions regarding the use of video games as research instruments, the experiences of researchers using them, and ways in which different research areas could learn from each other or collaborate in the future.

After

The results will be presented in the CHI poster session. Efforts would be made to publish longer versions of the position papers as a special journal issue or book. The results of the workshop would be published as a paper.

Organisers' Backgrounds

Eduardo H. Calvillo Gámez

Eduardo is a faculty member of the Division of New Information Technologies at Universidad Politécnica de San Luis Potosí, México. He holds Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction from University College London. His research interests are user experience, input devices, epistemology of HCI and video games. He currently uses video games as an instrument to understand user experience, strategy and input devices.

Paul Cairns

Paul is a senior lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York. He holds a DPhil in Mathematics from Oxford University. He has research interests in the experience of video games and modelling user interactions. Together with Anna Cox, he has edited the book Research Methods for HCI. He is currently using video games to understand immersion and addiction.

Jeremy Gow

Jeremy is a research associate in the Computational Creativity Group at Imperial College. He holds a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are user experience of video games and formal models in HCI.  He currently uses video games to understand the user experience of adaptative interactive systems.

Jonathan Back

Jonathan is a research associate at UCL Interaction Centre. He holds a Ph.D. in Information Science from Loughborough University His research interests are human error, resilience engineering and safety-critical systems. He currently uses video games to understand human error.

Eddie Capstick

Eddie is a research student at UCL Interaction Centre. He holds the MSc in Human Computer Interaction & Ergonomics. His current research interests are the social elements of immersion including the multiple-user experience and game addiction.

Abstract

Abstract

The workshop aims to help researchers share experience and expertise on the use of video games as research instruments in HCI and related disciplines. It will focus on existing uses, methodologies, results and issues with using video games, and is expected to lead to a better shared understanding of their current and future use across a variety of disciplines.

Keywords

Video Games, Experience, Experimental Design.

ACM Classification Keywords

K8.0. Personal Computing: Games.

Motivation

Video games have a history of being used as stimuli in experiments that study a range of phenomena. Although a great deal of work is focused on developing and studying games for entertainment and education, they may also be used to investigate more general phenomena, albeit in a video game context.

Interest in more general uses of video games is on the rise in HCI and other disciplines. They have been used to study human error [1], addiction [2] and user experience [3], among other subjects.  However, communication between researchers in different areas is often limited or nonexistent. There is an untapped opportunity to share experience and expertise.

We aim to find common ground among diverse methodologies, e.g. the need for logging, manipulating existing game dynamics or developing games from scratch for research.  This common ground will be identified during the workshop.  A potential outcome is to run a course next year at CHI on using video games as research instruments.

Workshop Focus

The objective of the workshop is to encourage discussion amongst researchers who use video games as research instruments, who would not normally talk to each other.  It is aimed at researchers from across HCI and related disciplines in order to share good practice and resources while working with video games. 
 
The focus is on research that uses video games to contribute to an understanding of more general phenomena, such as user experience, decision making, human error or addiction, and which is not aimed exclusively (or at all) at game development.

The workshop will cover the variety of uses, methodologies and issues that characterize current efforts to employ video games as research instruments. It will bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines that use video games in their work, to share experience of and expertise in their use.

Workshop Goals

During the workshop, participants will present and discuss their work in order to identify the shared characteristics and key differences in their use of video games.

At the end of workshop we expect to have an overview of the state-of-the-art, and an improved understanding of the key issues in using video games as research instruments, based on the case studies presented.  We will also identify how different areas can learn from each other and perhaps collaborate in the future.

Participants & Community

HCI researchers, computer scientists, psychologists who work with video games are invited to apply. We also encourage researchers from a wider range of disciplines to apply.  For example, medical researchers, economists, social scientists, linguists, biologists (protein folding as a game). 
 
Participants from all disciplines that use video games as part of their experimental design are invited to present a 4 page position paper. The paper should focus on the general problem your research addresses, how and why video games are used, an overview of results and a discussion of experiences and issues specific to using games on how video games are used to address their phenomena of interests, and how the experiments were designed to account for the video game.  No more than 20 participants will be invited to attend.

The research presented may have aims completely unrelated to video games, or may focus on video games in order to investigate a more general phenomena.  Work which is exclusively aimed at development of video games (including serious games) will not be accepted.

We hope the workshop will highlight to the general research community the diverse uses and possibilities of using video games in HCI and related disciplines.

References

1.        Back, J., Cheng, W, Dann, R., Curzon, P., & Blandford, A. (2006). Does being motivated to avoid procedural errors influence their systematicity? People and Computers XX - Engage Proceedings of HCI 2006 (Vol. 1).

2.        Seah, M. and Cairns, P. (2008) From Immersion to addiction in videogames. In England, D. and Beale, R. (Eds) Proc. of HCI 2008, vol 1 BCS, 55-63.

3.        Calvillo-Gámez, E., Cairns, P. and Cox, A. (2009) From the Gaming Experience to the Wider User Experience. In Blackwell, A. (Ed.) Proc. of BCS HCI 2009.

[UP]