Cultivating Researcher-Sensibility in Novice Designers
Exploring Genre-Specific Heuristics for Game Evaluation in a Design Studio
Xueliang Li (Southern University of Science and Technology )
H. Xue (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
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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.