Summary of My Role
I was hired by a small agency to be the lead researcher on this project because of my experience with this contextual interviewing, running complex diary studies, and my broad gaming knowledge.
I was the sole researcher on the project. The agency team also included a project manager and recruiting specialist. We had one primary contact on the Client side.
Research Objectives:
- Understanding Creative Gamer Motivations
Characterize the core motivations of these gamers… understanding both how they differ from other gamers but also how they can be broken down within the group of “creative gamers.”
- Identifying Unique Needs
Better understand the unique needs and challenges of this subset of gamers. A lot of gaming research by large OEMs and other hardware manufacturers has been oriented toward “high-octane” gamers who play games for the action and competition.
- Exploring Social Elements
Understand any social element to their creative gaming whether it be sharing their creations or participating in related communities.
- Hardware Decision Making
Investigate how they make choices surrounding their PC hardware and characterize how that ties back to their core motivations.
Research Activities
- Initial Interviews (60 mins each)
Initial Interview with each player where they show us how they create, talk about the project they plan to work on over the next three weeks, and then get oriented to the diary study.
- Diary Study (3 weeks)
Diary study where participants fill out multi-media surveys each day to update on their play.
- Debrief Interviews (60 mins each)
Debrief Interviews where players show us what they have created, go into detail about their PC setup, and reflect more on their motivations for this type of gameplay.
Project Challenges:
Challenge 1: Client’s current classification of creative gamers was not matching with the users we spoke to
The players were recruited from 5 sub-categories of creative gamers (modders, world-builders, simulators, crafters, mini-game creators) but these classifications proved to be both misleading and inadequate.
Solution: Create a new classification based on motivation to create
The recruiting guidelines were useful for finding a broad set of gamers to talk to, but once we had our 15, we needed to throw those buckets out. I ended up showing the Client that a minority of these gamers fit cleanly into a single of their categories. Instead, I proposed a new classification based on their core motivation… of which I proposed six. For example, some gamers create because...
- …they aspire to be professional game designers
- …want find a new way to enjoy a game they have played for many years
- …they are using the game as a medium to tell their own stories
- … they just like to build cool sh*t
Challenge 2: Client wants actionable recommendations, but also wants to see the rich details from the immense amount of data collected
I ended up with an immense amount of data from the diary study portion. Each participant was checking in daily and sending in images, videos, and comments on their creative journey.
Solution 1: Stay engaged with data as it is being created
One solution was to stay engaged with the players over the course of the study. This helped me stay immersed in their creative experience, and avoid getting overwhelmed by a lake of data at the of the three weeks. Additionally, keeping up day-to-day allowed me to ask players specific questions and address issues they were having with the data collection process.
Solution 2: Structure the report for multiple audiences
The second solution came down to structuring the report in a very thoughtful way for multiple audiences. I created three main sections in what ended up being a very detailed report:
- Short, visually-driven, Executive Summary with key strategic takeaways spelled out clearly at the end. (5 slides)
- Detailed Findings section going into detail about key takeaways and recommendations. In this section, I can add nuance to my findings and use quotes and videos to add supporting evidence. (15 slides)
- PC Pain Points because I know from working with this client that some report consumers will just want to know about what this means for the hardware. (8 slides)
- Participant-by-Participant Breakdown to understand each users particular passion, and, crucially, get a lot of details on their PC setup. (60 slides)
Want to know more? Shoot me an email at uxnoah@gmail.com, or schedule a time with me here.
