Discussion

The primary aim of the pilot study was to test the chosen data collection methods and the study materials to ensure they are appropriate for the type of research reported in this thesis. The mixed methods approach adopted in this study provided a means to address the objectives of the research through a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. The researcher observation of the participants during game play provided useful data which enabled the exploration of the behaviours the participants exhibited while interacting with an ECA enabled game using three different controllers. The findings from this study revealed a range of collaborative behaviours (occurring before, during and after game play) exhibited by the participants. These include:

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 Giving directions/instructions where a participant directs or instructs the partner e.g. “I count one and you tilt left, two right, three shoot”

 Making suggestions where a participant puts forward an idea to the partner e.g. “Ok, maybe I shout and you press shoot”.

 Playing silently where a participant does not communicate via talking during interaction with game.

 Glancing at partner’s controllers where a participant takes a quick look at partner’s controller

 Awareness of the map on the screen where a participant points at the map on the screen and makes verbalizations

 Asking for help from the researcher where a participant asks for information from researcher

 Arguing where the participants discussed their interactions during game play with each giving their own different opinions.

 Pointing at the screen where a participant points at the screen

 ‘Telling by showing’ where a participant shows partner what to do using the own controller while the partner watched.

These behaviours are important as they give a clue on the possible behaviours that could be adopted by the participants while playing an ECA enabled game. It was speculated that the participants’ collaborative behaviours will vary for the three controllers: gamepad, dancemat and tangible. All the behaviours identified in this study were present in the gamepad condition, four of the behaviours in the dancemat condition and a few (two of the behaviours) in the tangible condition.

The participants appeared to be enthusiastic and engaged well with the activities in the study, with some shouting, laughing and jumping while others focused all their attention on the gameplay. Participants’ preference appears to influence their enjoyment of the collaborative element of the game reason being that it was fun, challenging, competitive and promoted teamwork. These results are in line with study that have looked at player enjoyment of digital games (Gajadhar, Kort, & Ijsselsteijn, 2008). The dance mat appeared to be the most fun controller while the game pad was easiest to play the game with. It cannot be concluded in this study which controller was liked most by the participants as 42% of the participants ranked both

90 the tangible controller and game pad highest on the ‘like the most’ constructs. A high familiarity with the game pad (75% of the participants) could be the reason for the participants ranking the game pad as easiest to use controller. The researcher did not include the dance mat in the pre- test questionnaire so cannot say if the participants were novices or experts in the use of dance mat (this is investigated in future studies). The reason the dancemat was not included in the pre-test questionnaire in this study was because initially the researcher wanted to use balance board as opposed to dancemat for the study. However, due to the technical difficulties experienced with the balance board, the researcher opted for an alternative, dancemat which was omitted (not intentionally) in the pre-test questionnaire. This issue was resolved in the subsequent studies. In this study, it was observed that controllers the participants ranked lowest on the funsorter was rated as ‘not very good’ using the smileyometer and those ranked highest on the funsorter were rated as ‘brilliant’ using the smileyometer. Whilst this result is limited in the number of participants, it is in line with conclusions of previous research that the fun sorter on the construct of fun measures the same thing as the smileyometer (J.C. Read, 2007). In addition, those (6 (50%)) that ranked a controller highest on the ‘most fun’ construct ranked the same controller as highest on the ‘liked the most’ construct whereas those (6 (50%)) that ranked a controller highest on the ‘easiest to use’ construct ranked the same controller as highest on the ‘liked the most’ construct. This suggests that controllers that are fun or easy to use influenced some of the participants’ decision on the controller they liked most. On four occasions same controllers were ranked highest on the three constructs indicating that the participants showed no variability in the scores across the three constructs. This could be as a result of some of the participants not understanding the differences between the constructs (Read & MacFarlane, 2006b). Contrary to the conclusions of Read et al. (1999) which indicated that people would like to do fun things again, preliminary results showed that dance mat is a fun controller that participants liked, but they would not like to use it again. However, during the conduct of this study, two of the participants complained of intermittent faults in the operation of the dance mat and this may have affected their response to this question. This is explored in future studies.

There are several reasons for adding visualizations in games and these have been highlighted in literature (Bowman, Elmqvist, & Jankun-Kelly, 2012). In this study we used a very simple visual representation, a map to provide a visual feedback of each participant’s interaction with the game. It was thought that inclusion of visualization in the game may help the participants to be

91 aware of their own and partner’s action thus improving interactions. Results from this study showed that the participants noticed the map and were aware of its function in the game. However, it cannot be concluded if the participants who noticed the map actually used it to reach decision on control during game play.

5.5 Conclusion

This chapter reports a pilot study conducted to test the suitability of the selected data collection methods and readiness of the study materials designed to address the objectives of the thesis. Results showed that the participants did not have any major issues playing the game with the controllers. Various data collection methods such as researcher observation of the participants during interaction, fun toolkit and questionnaires were used in the study to provide useful data to understand the concept of ECA. These methods were quite suitable; the participants did not seem to have any issues completing the evaluation forms however, the researcher appreciates the limitations of human observation which includes the possibility to miss out some behaviours of the participants during game play (Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis, 2012). It was concluded that video recording would be a more appropriate tool to record the participants’ behaviours in subsequent studies (Chapter 6 and 7). Also, it was thought that longer duration might provide the participants with more time to interact with the game hence allowing the researcher a longer study period to observe the participants.

The key insights drawn from this study are as follows:

 A range of collaborative behaviours were observed while the participants played a digital game with ECA. These collaborative behaviours which are of interest when designing for ECA include giving instructions and suggestions, playing silently, glancing at each other’s controllers, awareness of the map on the screen, asking for help from the researcher, pointing at the screen and ‘telling by showing’. In this study, it was observed that these collaborative behaviours manifested before, during and after game play.

 Contrary to the conclusion of Read et al. (1999) that people would like to use what they considered fun again, it was accidentally observed (due to faulty dance mat during game play) that there was disparity between what controller the participants liked and the ones they would like to use again. This would be investigated further in subsequent

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 The participants found the game pad to be the easiest controller to play the game with while the dance mat was the most fun controller. Conclusions were not reached on the controller that was liked most by the participants.

 It was observed that the participants’ preferences affected their enjoyment of the game as those who preferred to play game alone enjoyed them whilst those who preferred playing in groups enjoyed group games. However, validation studies would explore this further especially in larger and varied study population.

 In this study, the controllers that are fun or easy to use influenced some participants’ decision on the controller they like most.

 Majority of the participants (83%) noticed the interaction map on the screen and were aware of its function in the game. However, it could not be confirmed in this study if they used the map to reach decision on how to play.

The next chapter reports a similar study conducted with modification to the data collection methods and gameplay duration. The idea is to see whether newer behaviours will be observed and capture every strategy as it unfolds to more effectively measure ECA.

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