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Qualitative & Quantitative User Research
Analyzed diary entries, user interviews, and quant data while conducting content analysis to understand user needs and behaviors related to gaming for couples. (And created some cool graphs in R along the way!)
Date
March 2024 - September 2024
Role
Research Assistant
Organizations
HCDE Department
Skills gained
• Data Collection
• Diary Studies
• User Personas
• R Programing & GGplot
• User Interviews
• Thematic Analysis
Details
Research Goal: Conduct user research through diary studies, user interviews, and surveys with long-distance couples who play games together.
The exact purpose of this research was twofold: to inform the design of the gaming app api project, (Click here↗ to see the UX/UI Design project) and to contribute to an HCI paper, where I am listed as one of the authors. This research provided valuable insights into the emotional and relational dynamics of couples gaming together, which were integral to both the design process and the paper.
Key Contribution: Data Visualizations
Leveraging my proficiency in R (Statistical Programing Language) and the ggplot data visualization package, I calculated key statistics for the paper and also created many of the data visualizations featured in the paper. These visualizations were used to present our findings clearly and effectively. Below are a few examples I’d like to showcase.
Graph 1: This graph illustrates the types of games couples were playing, with the purpose of guiding game designers in creating games tailored to couples' preferences.
Graph 2: This graph displays how often couples experienced emotions tied to design strategies discussed in the paper "Current Strategies of Mediating Intimate Relationships through Technology."
Graph 3 & 4: These graphs were used to quantitatively categorize couples into different archetypes and help develop user personas.
Graph 5 & 6: Violin plots used to illustrate the variation in how different user archetypes report experiencing six emotions that the paper focuses on.
Graph 7: Demonstrates a correlation between the reported emotional sentiment levels of partner A and partner B during a gaming session.
Graph 8: A three-variable graph visualizing that higher levels of combined emotional sentiment correspond to longer playing times (graph not included in paper).
User Interviews:
The interviews explored various aspects of play styles, differences in gaming preferences between partners, challenges in maintaining a connection in long-distance relationships, and the use of in-game screenshot features. These questions were designed to uncover key insights into how couples interact through gaming, helping us understand their behaviors and emotional experiences.
As a team, we collaboratively analyzed the interview recordings, while individually applying qualitative codes. We then synthesized our findings by merging the codes to identify common patterns and themes, which helped us create detailed summaries for each couple. This process was crucial for developing accurate user personas and archetypes, as it provided a solid foundation for understanding different user needs and behaviors. The depth of qualitative analysis ensured that the personas were both data-driven and representative of real user experiences, enhancing the overall design process.
Diary Studies:
Couples were asked to maintain a detailed log after each gaming session with their partner to capture fresh insights and minimize recall bias. These logs included responses to questions about emotional experiences, their connection to their partner, memorable moments, and details of the games they played.
I used R and Excel to reformat the diary entries into more structured and usable files, allowing us to extract quantitative and qualitative insights. This data was crucial for creating many of the graphs displayed above, and it also informed the statistical findings used in the paper. This process involved transforming qualitative experiences into measurable data, allowing us to draw meaningful conclusions about user behavior and emotional connections within the gaming context.
User Personas & Archetypes:
After analyzing the interviews and diary studies, we ranked couples based on their levels of competitiveness and cooperativeness. I created graphs 3 and 4 to illustrate how three distinct archetypes emerged from this process. Using the summaries derived from our thematic analysis, we identified key traits for each archetype. These archetypes were a significant finding in the paper, and further statistical analysis was conducted to explore how these couples differed from one another, providing deeper insights into their behaviors and interactions.