| The first meeting was essentially a trial run of the journal club idea – and it seemed to be quite an interesting and useful exercise. The topic under discussion was an introspective one – we decided to take a critical look at a paper that we recently published, along with the reviews it attracted in order to see if we could figure out how to move forward with similar work.
The paper itself is based on our pervasive airport security game ‘Blowtooth’ and has recently been accepted to the alt.chi track of chi 2010 – the worlds leading HCI conference. The paper itself had drawn very interesting reviews that implied how the game is interesting – but they didn’t agree on why. Some suggested that it is an example of critical game design, others – surveillance art and others simply as an interesting example of pervasive games design. Discussions on friday focused on how the game – like a lot of computer games – runs counter to traditional thinking in HCI – its appeal is based on making the user more anxious, rather than less anxious. We liked this as a theme and have decided to work on improvements to the original blowtooth game that can help us investigate it further. We also intend to design further game-based pervasive applications that will examine the idea of computers that deliberately make you more anxious. We’ll keep the blog updated as this work progresses. Next weeks session will be similar – we are looking at a paper that has been accepted to CHI and we will discuss how best to move forward with this research, based on relevant stuff we have read. |
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We at LiSc have decided to run an informal journal club on friday afternoons from 2pm-3pm (approx) where we will look at trends in HCI/ social computing research. We will propose a new topic each week and email each other with a couple of relevant papers, which the whole group read and then discuss over coffee and cakes. Somebody has the pleasure of taking notes and writes them up for a blog post – preferably with lots of pictures and exclamation marks!!!!! I will update with the outcomes of the first meeting asap!
We are delighted to have a strong representation at CHI 2010, with five separate pieces of work that have been accepted to various tracks of the conference. CHI 2010 takes place from April 10th – 15th in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. CHI (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems) is the premier international conference for the field of human-computer interaction. CHI 2010 looks outward to the human experience of computing in the world. “We are HCI†challenges our community to embrace the diversity of HCI in the world and to exclaim our commitment as a profession to empower people from all walks of life. Ben will present a main conference track paper on social network analysis entitled “Improving Social Game Engagement on Facebook through Enhanced Socio-Contextual Information.” We will present two papers at the alt.chi track of the conference. The first of these examines pervasive gaming in high security environments and is based around an initial evaluation of the Blowtooth game (see http://www.blowtooth.com). The second of our alt.chi papers deals with the possible advantages of analysing feedback delivered by persuasive applications in a way that is influenced by the findings of behavioural science. This paper is entitled “There’s a Monster in My Kitchen: Using Aversive Feedback to Motivate Behaviour Change.” The two remaining contributions are Work-in-Progress poster presentations. The first of these presents a social tagging-based methodology for determining content of food photographs, while the second, presented by Derek Foster, details the results of a pilot study of an application that combines the use of pedometer data and social networks to motivate users to increase the amount of exercise.
The ACM conference in Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE) has become the leading academic forum for dissemination of novel research results in the area of entertainment computing. This year for the first time it incorporates DIMEA which has established itself over the last three years as a strong conference on interactive entertainment arts. Together the conference forms an exciting new step blending deeply the latest research in art and technology. The conference will be held in Athens, Greece from 29-31 October 2009. LiSC is very pleased to be attending to deliver a presentation on our paper “Familiars: Representing Facebook Users’ Social Behaviour through a Reflective Playful Experience” by Ben Kirman, Eva Ferrari, Shaun Lawson, Jonathan Freeman, Jane Lessiter and Conor Linehan. This paper was written in strong collaboration with colleagues from Goldsmiths in London, with whom we are partners in the EU funded PASION project.
LiSC are delighted to be attending the 2009 MindTrek Conference in Tampere, Finland, which takes place from 30th September to 2nd October. MindTrek is the leading Nordic digital media and business conference, focusing on social media & Web 2.0. The conference brings together entrepreneurs, researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines that are involved in the development of media in various fields, ranging from sociology and economy, to technology. Ben Kirman will present a paper entitled “Mario, Luigi and Dave: The Effect of Language on the Social Structure of a Bilingual Online Mobile Game.” Abstract – In this paper, we explore the structure of a social community built in an online game that was released in two languages, specifically examining the behaviours of players involved in inter-lingual interaction. This asynchronous social game was released simultaneously in Italian and English. The player base was seeded with English and Italian players but allowed to grow organically without restriction. Despite the built-in segregation by language, we found that the entire player-base formed into a single social network and developed strategies for overcoming the challenges faced by a multi-lingual game community. Using Network Analysis, we break down the community in the game based on language and play style. We demonstrate that the behaviour of both English and Italian players was equivalent, and that play style had no effect on the likelihood of players deliberately engaging in inter-lingual communication. In the context of the strategies used by the players in our experiment, we discuss game design patterns that provide incentives for users to behave more socially and how to create tools to enable the players to cross the lingual and cultural barriers in online games.
Conor Linehan will be presenting a paper entitled “Developing a serious game to evaluate and train group decision making skills.” Abstract – The success of a serious game depends on whether the skill being taught and practiced in the game is the same as that which is required in the real world. The current paper describes the building of a serious game designed to teach group decision making skills to a unique audience; people who co-ordinate responses to real-world emergencies such as floods, fires, volcanoes and chemical spills. The 13th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction will be held 19-24 July 09, Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA, USA. This conference is an international forum for the dissemination and exchange of information on theoretical, generic and applied areas of HCI. Laura Daley will present her paper “Asperger Syndrome and Mobile Phone Behaviour” on Thursday 23 July. Abstract – This paper introduces the idea of using modern technology to work as an assistive tool for adults with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and Higher-Functioning Autism (HFA) The study investigated the use of mobile phones by a neurotypical control group. Participants reported their pattern of phone use given specific social scenarios. Results showed that participants were more likely to use the text messaging facility on their phone to contact someone rather than call them. It also showed that their choice of communication mode did not differ given different social scenarios and neither did it when the information was given from the recipients’ perspective. Further investigation is described where this information will be compared to a group of AS individuals.
The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Social Computing takes place in Vancouver from August 29-31st, 2009. This conference provides a key forum for researchers and industry practitioners to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of art and practice of social computing. Social Computing can be broadly defined as computational facilitation of social studies and human social dynamics as well as design and use of information and communication technologies that consider social context. Ben Kirman will present a paper entitled “Gaming on and off the Social Graph: The Social Structure of Facebook Games.” Abstract—Games built on Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become a phenomenon since 3rd party developer tools were released by OSNs such as Facebook. However, apart from their explosive popularity, little is known about the nature of the social networks that are built during play. In this paper, we present the findings of a network analysis study carried out on two Facebook applications, in comparison with a similar but stand-alone game. We found that games built both on and off a social graph exhibit similar social properties. Specifically, the distribution of player-to-player interactions decays as a power law with a similar exponent for the majority of players. For games built on the social network platform however, we find that the networks are characterised by a sharp cut-off, compared with the classically scale-free nature of the social network for the game not built on an existing social graph. July 22nd to 24th, 2009
Conor Linehan will be presenting a paper entitled “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘Emergency Management Team:’ Designing and evaluating a serious game for training emergency managers in group decision making skills” on Thursday July 23, 2009. ABSTRACT – Serious games are games that are designed to educate rather than entertain. The game outlined and evaluated here was commissioned and designed as a tool to improve the group decision making skills of people who manage real-world emergencies such as floods, fires, volcanoes and chemical spills. The game design exploits research on decision making groups and applies pedagogically sound games design principles. An evaluation of the game design was carried out based on a paper prototype. Eight participants were recruited and assigned to two groups of four participants each. These groups were video recorded while playing the game and the video was analysed in terms of game actions and member participation. Results indicate that the group who behaved in a more appropriate manner for a decision making group were rewarded with more positive feedback from the game state. These findings suggest that the game itself delivers appropriate feedback to players on their collaborative behaviour and is thus fit for the purposes intended in the current project. See further details here |
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