User Experience (UX)

User Experience (UX) describes a user's perceptions and responses while interacting with a designed product, system, or service. Since we cannot control an individual's perceptions and responses to a design, it is important to understand their needs so that we can design for and serve them. Our lab focuses on Games User Research (GUR), which posits that games live and die on their player (user) experience. GUR is essential for game design because it helps us understand our players and how to design the intended experience in games. Our research strives to investigate new and existing GUR methods, practices, and tools to help us better understand players so that we can design for a diverse population with unique needs, desires, and expectations.

Relevant project pages:

Embodiment in SVR
In Social Virtual Reality (SVR), mediated social communication blends with simulated virtual environments and bodies.
Multimedia Showdown in Gather Town
Tired of boring online meetings? We’re testing video, audio, & avatars to find the perfect mix. Early results show avatars boost engagement. Stay tuned for our findings on how to make meetings awesome.
Affective Evaluation of Games & Interactive Media
Evaluating user experience with affective measures is a field of growing importance in the human factors domain, because the emotional effects of engaging technology, such as movies, mobile networked devices, games and new media, are not well understood. Within this research theme, we are developing and validating robust new methods