Project Name: Evaluating Affective User Experience

Project Leader

Regan Mandryk

Project Co-Leader

Jeremy Cooperstock

Researchers

• Jeremy Cooperstock (McGill)
• Cristina Conati (UBC)
• Diane Gromala (SFU)
• Karon MacLean (UBC)
• Regan Mandryk (Saskatoon)
• Magy Seif El-Nasr (SFU)

Theme Distribution

• Theme 1 : 15%
• Theme 2 : 20%
• Theme 3 : 15%
• Theme 5 : 50%

Project Description

The development of evaluation methodologies in human-computer interaction research (HCI) originated in Psychology, Human Factors, Engineering and Computer Science. Evaluation of user experience from an emotional or affective perspective which is equally important to design is still not well understood, especially when the primary goal of a technology is to entertain or to invoke an emotional experience (Norman, 2002; Pagulayan et al, 2002) . Traditional measures of user behaviour developed for evaluating productivity technology (such as task performance) are not always applicable to many computer games, animations, or new media environments in which the aim is to identify the kind of emotional experience provided by the technology and environment regardless of user performance. Development of entertainment technologies is a risky and expensive undertaking, as significant time and resources are often devoted to products that are never released because they do not provide an effective emotional experience for end users. Our research stands to yield significant benefits to our partners by reducing their risk of investing time and resources into products that will not get to market, by reducing the development cost and time of those that do, and by improving the final products by ensuring a compelling user experience.

The goal of this project is to develop and validate a suite of reliable, valid, and robust methods for evaluating affective user experience in computer games, animations, and new media environments that address the unique challenges of these technologies. Building on the previous work and expertise of project team members, we will build affective evaluation methods based on users' physiological signals, including their cardiac activity, galvanic skin response, brain activity, eye gaze and blink patterns, pupil diameter activity, and muscular response. In addition, we will integrate less-invasive approaches, including facial expression image recognition, thermographic imaging, interactive behavioural measures, and subjective responses. Our models of user affect will be built and validated in both laboratory and real-world settings to ensure both scientific relevance and applicability to our industry partners in computer games, new media, and animation.

Excellence of the Research

Development of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)

High demand in industry for graduates with these skills. Hard to achieve these skills without an interdisciplinary approach.

Networking and Partnerships

Interdisciplinary team from Computer Science, Engineering, Interactive Art and Technology. We expect close collaboration both with domain partners (e.g., Radical, Electronic Arts) and with partners who create the sensing devices we employ in our evaluation methods (e.g., Thought Techology, Locarna).

Knowledge and Technology Exchange and Exploitation

We expect that our affective evaluation methods could be commercialized. In addition, the work on integrating sensors into custom interaction devices (not highlighted in current blurb, but in longer proposal) will be of great interest to a large number of companies, both in the entertainment sector and beyond in traditional productivity environments.

References to the Literature

Norman, D.A. (2002). Emotion and design: Attractive things work better. Interactions, 9 (4), 36-42.

Pagulayan, R.J., Keeker, K., Wixon, D., Romero, R., and Fuller, T. User-centered design in games, in Handbook for human-computer interaction in interactive systems, (J. Jacko and A. Sears, eds.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.: Mahwah, NJ, (2002), 883-906.

Publications

Presentations

• 2 Minute Madness 2010