Communication Arts

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/11482

This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Communication Arts. It was known as the Department of Drama and Speech Communication until September 2018.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 24

Personalization in Serious and Persuasive Games and Gamified Interactions
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2015-10) Busch, Marc; Mattheiss, Elke; Orji, Rita; Marczewski, Andrzej; Hochleitner, Wolfgang; Lankes, Michael; Nacke, Lennart; Tscheligi, Manfred
Serious and persuasive games and gamified interactions have become popular in the last years, especially in the realm of behavior change support systems. They have been used as tools to support and influence human behavior in a variety of fields, such as health, sustainability, education, and security. It has been shown that personalized serious and persuasive games and gamified interactions can increase effectivity of supporting behavior change compared to "one-size-fits all"-systems. However, how serious games and gamified interactions can be personalized, which factors can be used to personalize (e.g. personality, gender, persuadability, player types, gamification user types, states, contextual/situational variables), what effect personalization has (e.g. on player/user experience) and whether there is any return on investment is still largely unexplored. This full-day workshop aims at bringing together the academic and industrial community as well as the gaming and gamification community to jointly explore these topics and define a future roadmap.
Towards Understanding the Importance of Co-Located Gameplay
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2015-10-05) Wehbe, Rina Renee; Nacke, Lennart
Analyzing the social con¬text present in a gameplay environment and its effect on player experience can provide insights informing the design and social value of games. We investigate the influence of social condition (cooperative or competitive play with a human player versus computer-controlled character) on player experience. The study controlled for co-presence by ensuring that another individual attending to the same stimulus was present in all conditions. Although physiological measures were not significant, subjective measures of arousal and pleasure were significantly different under varying conditions.
Lightweight Games User Research for Indies and Non-Profit Organizations
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-05-07) Nacke, Lennart; Moser, Christiane; Drachen, Anders; Mirza-Babaei, Pejman; Abney, Andrea; Zhenyu, Zhu (Cole)
The Games User Research (GUR) community has thrived at CHI with four workshops and a course since CHI 2012; all of these were well attended. In line with the #chi4good spirit this year, the GUR field must advance towards demographics that will benefit from GUR but are currently underrepresented in the community: Small, independent developers, non-profit organizations, and academics that create mobile games, games for health or change, or educational games. This workshop will be a think tank for participants to construct collective knowledge, share and discuss. We plan to discuss topics online beyond the workshop via the International Game Developer Associations Special Interest Group on GUR, which serves as a basis for disseminating workshop outcomes and further discussion.
SIGCHI Games: The Scope of Games and Play Research at CHI
(ACM, 2016-05-07) Nacke, Lennart; Cox, Anna; Mandryk, Regan; Cairns, Paul
The games research community at CHI has become an ever-growing significant part of the conference, demonstrated by the SIGCHI-sponsored CHI PLAY conference and the inclusion of a games subcommittee at CHI 2016. Given the increase in quantity and variety of submissions, and the involvement and engagement of practitioners within the community, it is important for the community to have this SIG as a forum. We plan to give a brief overview of the history of game research at CHI as well as its current state. Then, we want to engage the community in a discussion about the scope that games research at CHI should have and where we want to take this community from here. We want to vibrantly explore new outlets for academic dissemination, community outreach, and collaborations with practitioners.
Investigating the Impact of Cooperative Communication Mechanics on Player Performance in Portal 2
(Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, 2016-06) Vaddi, Deepika; Toups, Zachary; Dolgov, Igor; Wehbe, Rina Renee; Nacke, Lennart
Cooperative communication mechanics, such as avatar gestures or in-game visual pointers, enable player collaboration directly through gameplay. We currently lack a deeper understanding of how players use cooperative communication mechanics, and whether they can effectively supplement or even supplant traditional voice and chat communication. The present research investigated player communication in Portal 2 by testing the game’s native cooperative communication mechanics for dyads of players in custom test chambers. Following our initial hypothesis, players functioned best when they had access to both cooperative communication mechanics and voice. We found that players preferred voice communication, but perceived cooperative communication mechanics as necessary to coordinate interdependent actions.
"The Collecting Itself Feels Good": Towards Collection Interfaces for Digital Game Objects
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-10-16) Toups, Zachary; Crenshaw, Nicole K.; Wehbe, Rina Renee; Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Nacke, Lennart
Digital games offer a variety of collectible objects. We investigate players' collecting behaviors in digital games to determine what digital game objects players enjoyed collecting and why they valued these objects. Using this information, we seek to inform the design of future digital game object collection interfaces. We discuss the types of objects that players prefer, the reasons that players value digital game objects, and how collection behaviors may guide play. Through our findings, we identify design implications for digital game object collection interfaces: enable object curation, preserve rules and mechanics, preserve context of play, and allow players to share their collections with others. Digital game object collection interfaces are applicable to the design of digital games, gamified applications, and educational software.
Heuristic Evaluation for Gameful Design
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-10-16) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Kappen, Dennis; Mekler, Elisa; Ganaba, Marim; Nacke, Lennart
Despite the emergence of many gameful design methods in the literature, there is a lack of evaluation methods specific to gameful design. To address this gap, we present a new set of guidelines for heuristic evaluation of gameful design in interactive systems. First, we review several gameful design methods to identify the dimensions of motivational affordances most often employed. Then, we present a set of 28 gamification heuristics aimed at enabling experts to rapidly evaluate a gameful system. The resulting heuristics are a new method to evaluate user experience in gameful interactive systems
CLEVER: Gamification and Enterprise Knowledge Learning
(ACM, 2016-10-16) Elm, Dominic; Kappen, Dennis; Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Nacke, Lennart
This paper describes the design and a preliminary implementation study of a gamified knowledge management system (KMS) that supports the learning component within knowledge management (KM). KM includes acquiring social capital through the process of acquisition, sharing, and dissemination of knowledge within a company. Employees often lack the motivation to share their implicit knowledge with one another and are reluctant to engage in a collaborative forum for such knowledge exchange. We developed a gamified learning component of an enterprise KMS to help foster this process of collaborative and participatory learning. More importantly, this game combines trivia and strategy elements as game elements to motivate the players for knowledge exchange. We report preliminary results from an exploratory study with nine participants which indicates that the above combination of game elements does contribute to participatory knowledge learning within an enterprise KMS.
Design and Preliminary Validation of The Player Experience Inventory
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-10-16) Vanden Abeele, Vero; Mekler, Elisa; Johnson, Daniel; Nacke, Lennart
We present the design and preliminary results of the validation of the Player Experience Inventory (PXI). Based on the input of 64 experts in the field of player-computer interaction, we designed and refined this new scale. Our scale is based on the MDA framework (and on Means-End theory, underlying MDA). The PXI incorporates two subscales, one with dimensions at the functional level (i.e., dynamics) and one at the psycho-social level (i.e., aesthetics). The initial results, via principal factor analysis, suggest the scale can be used accurately to evaluate player experience. This work is our first step towards presenting a new, validated survey instrument for player experience evaluation.
CLEVER: A Trivia and Strategy Game for Enterprise Knowledge Learning
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-10-16) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Kappen, Dennis; Ganaba, Marim; Stocco, Melissa; Elm, Dominic; Nacke, Lennart
Knowledge management (KM) includes the acquisition, sharing, and dissemination of knowledge within a company. The problem with many enterprise KM systems is that they are complex and hardly used, because workers lack motivation to engage in a collaborative process of knowledge sharing and learning. To address this, we developed a gameful learning component of an enterprise KM system (KMS). Our game features an innovative combination of trivia and strategy elements, put together to afford motivation within a KMS. It can be played by employees in the same organization to foster collaborative knowledge exchange and learning.
ABOVE WATER: An Educational Game for Anxiety
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-10-16) Wehbe, Rina Renee; Watson, Diane K.; Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Ganaba, Marim; Stocco, Melissa; Lee, Alvin; Nacke, Lennart
We present Above Water - a digital/physical hybrid game to inform people about the available strategies to cope with two types of Anxiety Disorders - Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. The game teaches players about existing treatments. This hybrid game is designed to inspire players to share their experiences and develop their own personal narrative. The document also outlines an assessment strategy to study the game and determine its effectiveness as a game for health. The game is designed to educate non-institutionalized individuals with clinical anxiety and panic disorder. Potential players may be diagnosed, seeking intervention information, or a supportive friend.
The Gamification User Types Hexad Scale
(ACM, 2016-10-16) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Wehbe, Rina Renee; Diamond, Lisa; Busch, Marc; Marczewski, Andrzej; Nacke, Lennart
Several studies have indicated the need for personalizing gamified systems to users' personalities. However, mapping user personality onto design elements is difficult. Hexad is a gamification user types model that attempts this mapping but lacks a standard procedure to assess user preferences. Therefore, we created a 24-items survey response scale to score users' preferences towards the six different motivations in the Hexad framework. We used internal and test-retest reliability analysis, as well as factor analysis, to validate this new scale. Further analysis revealed significant associations of the Hexad user types with the Big Five personality traits. In addition, a correlation analysis confirmed the framework's validity as a measure of user preference towards different game design elements. This scale instrument contributes to games user research because it enables accurate measures of user preference in gamification.
ABOVE WATER: Extending the Play Space for Health
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-11-06) Wehbe, Rina Renee; Watson, Diane K.; Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Nacke, Lennart
ABOVE WATER is a game that disseminates information about Clinical Anxiety Disorders, particularly Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. This game focuses on teaching players about treatments as well as providing a safe space for discussion of personal experiences. This game focuses on using the physical world (physical space, physical and tangible cards) and the digital world (accessible by any phone or tablet with a modern web browser) as part of its gameplay.
ABOVE WATER: Extending the Play Space for Health
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-11-06) Wehbe, Rina Renee; Watson, Diane K.; Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Nacke, Lennart
ABOVE WATER is a game that disseminates information about Clinical Anxiety Disorders, particularly Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. This game focuses on teaching players about treatments as well as providing a safe space for discussion of personal experiences. This game focuses on using the physical world (physical space, physical and tangible cards) and the digital world (accessible by any phone or tablet with a modern web browser) as part of its gameplay.
CHI PLAYGUE: A Mobile Conference Networking Game
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2016-11-06) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Wehbe, Rina Renee; Nacke, Lennart
Modern professional networking relies on social media. To take advantage of this fact, we present CHI PLAYGUE, a conference game designed to facilitate interaction among strangers and encourage social networking to create a community. The game integrates digital technology (mobile devices and large displays) within the space of the conference venue, combined with a mixed-reality narrative and people's social interactions to facilitate the emergence of social dynamics. By providing a platform for large-scale, playful interaction, the game creates an experience that fosters the development of mutually beneficial, personal, and professional relationships among players.
Recommender Systems for Personalized Gamification
(ACM, 2017-07-09) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Orji, Rita; Nacke, Lennart
Gamification has been used in a variety of application domains to promote behaviour change. Nevertheless, the mechanisms behind it are still not fully understood. Recent empirical results have shown that personalized approaches can potentially achieve better results than generic approaches. However, we still lack a general framework for building personalized gameful applications. To address this gap, we present a novel general framework for personalized gameful applications using recommender systems (i.e., software tools and technologies to recommend suggestions to users that they might enjoy). This framework contributes to understanding and building effective persuasive and gameful applications by describing the different building blocks of a recommender system (users, items, and transactions) in a personalized gamification context.
Positive Gaming: Workshop on Gamification and Games for Wellbeing
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2017-10-15) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Orji, Rita; Vella, Kellie; Johnson, Daniel; Van Dooren, Marierose; Nacke, Lennart
Gamification and games have been used and studied in a variety of applications related with health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, there are very few studies aimed at designing games (whether serious games or recreational games) or gameful applications for improving wellbeing or flourishing – the pursuit of a happy and meaningful life, rather than the avoidance of illness. Therefore, this full-day Workshop aims to form a community, discuss theoretical and practical considerations, and promote the development of research projects focused on “Positive Gaming” – the use of gamification and games as tools for realizing Positive Computing objectives. This will create the opportunities for interested researchers to form a common understanding, develop methods and procedures, and establish a roadmap for future research in Positive Gaming.
Elements of Gameful Design Emerging from User Preferences
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2017-10-15) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Mora, Alberto; Nacke, Lennart
Several studies have developed models to explain player preferences. These models have been developed for digital games; however, they have been frequently applied in gameful design (i.e., designing non-game applications with game elements) without empirical validation of their fit to this different context. It is not clear if users experience game elements embedded in applications similarly to how players experience them in games. Consequently, we still lack a conceptual framework of design elements built specifically for a gamification context. To fill this gap, we propose a classification of eight groups of gameful design elements produced from an exploratory factor analysis based on participants’ self-reported preferences. We describe the characteristics of the users who are more likely to enjoy each group of design elements in terms of their gender, age, gamification user type, and personality traits. Our main contribution is providing an overview of which design elements work best for what demographic clusters and how we can apply this knowledge to design effective gameful systems.
A Framework and Taxonomy of Videogame Playing Preferences
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2017-10-15) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Wehbe, Rina Renee; Orji, Rita; Ribeiro, Giovanni; Nacke, Lennart
Player preferences for different gaming styles or game elements has been a topic of interest in human-computer interaction for over a decade. However, current models suggested by the extant literature are generally based on classifying abstract gaming motivations or player archetypes. These concepts do not directly map onto the building blocks of games, taking away from the utility of the findings. To address this issue, we propose a conceptual framework of player preferences based on two dimensions: game elements and game playing styles. To investigate these two concepts, we conducted an exploratory empirical investigation of player preferences, which allowed us to create a taxonomy of nine groups of game elements and five groups of game playing styles. These two concepts are foundational to games, which means that our model can be used by designers to create games that are tailored to their target audience. In addition, we demonstrate that there are significant effects of gender and age on participants’ preferences and discuss the implications of these findings.
A Theory of Gamification Principles Through Goal-Setting Theory
(Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2018-01-03) Fortes Tondello, Gustavo; Premsukh, Hardy; Nacke, Lennart
Goal-setting theory has been used for decades to explain how to motivate people to perform better in work-related tasks, but more recently gamification has also gained attention as an alternative method to increase engagement and performance in many contexts. However, despite goals and feedback being common elements of gameful implementations, there is a lack of literature explaining how gamification works through the lens of goal-setting theory or suggesting how goal-setting concepts and recommendations can be employed to improve gameful systems. Therefore, we present a literature review and a conceptual framework that establishes a relationship between goal-setting and gamification concepts. Next, we describe how this framework can help explain gamification principles and suggest potential improvements to current gameful design methods. Finally, we propose directions for future empirical research aimed to apply this conceptual framework in practice.

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