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Cultivating Researcher-Sensibility in Novice Designers: Exploring Genre-Specific Heuristics for Game Evaluation in a Design Studio

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Design, User Experience, and Usability (HCII 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14031))

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Abstract

This paper presents an eight-day design studio that teaches heuristic evaluation of games to third-year bachelor students at the School of Design, Southern University of Science and Technology. Through this course, students gain the first-hand experiences of developing heuristics for games through online survey and using them in idea generation and game evaluation. 13 students (working in groups of two or individually) developed 88 heuristics for 8 game genres by analyzing 349 quotes of game reviews collected from online. The heuristics were further developed into questionnaires and tested with invited 51 game players, followed up by post-interviews. The heuristics were also used as inspirational tools to help the students generate design ideas in an ideation exercise. Results of the students’ work indicate usefulness of the heuristics as evaluative and inspirational tools. In the discussion, we reflected on the challenges encountered by the students over the course and how dealing with these challenges could reveal further directions of teaching research methods in HCI studios.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Design, Southern University of Science and Technology, Chuangyuan Bldg. 6, 1088 Xueyuan Avenue, Shenzhen, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Xueliang Li

  2. Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE, Delft, The Netherlands

    Haian Xue

Authors
  1. Xueliang Li
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  2. Haian Xue
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Correspondence to Xueliang Li .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aaron Marcus and Associates, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Aaron Marcus

  2. World Usability Day and Bubble Mountain Consulting, Newton Center, MA, USA

    Elizabeth Rosenzweig

  3. Southern University of Science and Technology – SUSTech, Shenzhen, China

    Marcelo M. Soares

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Li, X., Xue, H. (2023). Cultivating Researcher-Sensibility in Novice Designers: Exploring Genre-Specific Heuristics for Game Evaluation in a Design Studio. In: Marcus, A., Rosenzweig, E., Soares, M.M. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14031. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35696-4_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35696-4_35

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35695-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35696-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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