Shang Lin Chen

As gaming spectatorship has become a worldwide phenomenon, keeping the spectator in mind while designing games is becoming more important. Here, we explore the factors that influence spectators’ engagement. Through the use of GRiD Crowd, a game akin to life-size Pong, different levels of spectator influence on the game were tested and their impact on engagement via arousal measures were analyzed. Spectator influence on the game was accomplished via smartphone, where 78 participants put in different audience compositions (alongside friends or strangers) were tested. We found that when the spectators had an impact on the game, higher levels of emotional arousal were recorded, which generated an increase in engagement. These results provide a suggestion of design that could be used by game designers who wish to engage their spectatorship, a segment of their target market that is becoming impossible to ignore.

As the world adapts to COVID-19, the transport behaviour of commuters has been greatly modified. Governments and transit authorities will need strong, well-received mitigation measures and education campaigns to maintain the historically upward trend of sustainable mass transit usage following this pandemic. This study, from a survey of 1968 Canadians in early May 2020, reveals that, following the end of stay-at-home orders, commuters intend to use their cars more and mass transit less. Driving these behavioural changes are commuters’ perceptions that mass transit use will negatively impact their health safety, peace of mind, and travel experience. The results also show that certain mitigation measures, such as more frequent cleaning and mandatory hand washing, are likely to reduce this decline, whereas e-monitoring and the use of health certificates will be detrimental to mass transit ridership through user perception. These results can help lessen the environmental impact of the public returning to work by encouraging their continued use of more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Design is about understanding the system and its users. Although User Experience (UX) research methodologies aim to explain the benefits of a holistic measurement approach including explicit (e.g., self-reported) and implicit (e.g., automatic and unconscious biophysiological reactions) data to better understand the global user experience, most of the personas and customer journey maps (CJM) seen in the literature and practice are mainly based on perceived and self-reported users’ responses. This paper aims to answer a call for research by proposing an experimental design based on the collection of both explicit and implicit data in the context of an authentic user experience. Using an inductive clustering approach, we develop a data driven CJM that helps understand, visualize, and communicate insights based on both data typologies. This novel tool enables the design development team the possibility of acquiring a broad portrait of both experienced (implicit) and perceived (explicit) users’ experiences.