Hello, and thanks for joining us for our talk on this paper.
My name is Harriet, and I'll be launching us into this talk today.
Later on, you'll hear from Velvet and Gisela as well.
The study centres on work conducted at the National Videogame Museum (NVM).
The National Videogame Arcade (NVA) as it was known at the time of the research project,
was a museum and videogame arcade located in Nottingham city centre, UK
spanning from the very earliest games, to the most modern ones.
that offered visitors the chance to engage, play with, create, and learn about video games
Shortly after the research project, the NVA rebranded to the NVM and relocated to the heart of Sheffield
where it continues its work as a cultural centre.
Hello, hi, I'm Velvet, I will be giving you an overview of the study set-up as a whole.
As a researcher-as-participant, I accompanied 11 groups of visitors in the NVA during August 2018 for 4 weeks
All groups consisted of 2+ people to see how visitors would firstly organise playing together in the space,
and secondly, how they make sense of the museum.
One of the main foci of this study, was to capture the interaction work of groups in the NVA.
This means recognising and paying attention to what concepts, ideas, and tools people use to make the museum visit happen.
Since this is quite an abstract concept, I will now introduce an example.
Here we see people queueing, but how is queueing being achieved between people?
It seems like it is not something that needs explaining, and it is one of the many taken-for-granted aspects in everyday life.
However, queueing only works because people pay close attention to each other
you leave space to the person in front of you, and only move up if they move up.
Making this happen requires interactional work.
You know not to cut the line, and where to join it.
Because interactional work manifests in many different ways, our data collection was also very diverse.
In terms of data analysis, we focused on making the interactional work visible to the reader
It included field notes, diagrams, photos, and videos of the group visit.
by capturing it and explicating it carefully through detailed descriptions of the visits
which are presented as fragments in this paper.
to position this work in the relevant discourses.
Hi, I'm Gisela. I'm going to give a bit of context
First, we build upon literature investigating
As museums evolve to become more interactive
the space opens up for museums who
interaction in museums.
but which centre exclusively around it.
do not just include interactivity in their exhibits
As part of this change, video games are increasingly
found in museum spaces
such as the museum in which study took place.
to offer novel modes of engagement and learning
for visitors
Then, we also build on previous research looking at
more specifically, together.
We aim to understand the players' embodied activities
people playing video games
arising in the co-located setting.
We are also interested in the role of
coupled with the social interaction
The work we're presenting here could be seen
spectators and audiences in the gaming experience.
as the fusion between these two lines of research.
To understand the data collected
The activity map represents the sequential activities
an activity map was generated
inspired by the work of Crabtree et. al.
of participants in their visits.
This map shows just one interpretation of
the ways people made sense of the museum
but is not as complicated as it first seems.
We know this may seem a little overwhelming
The activity map breaks down into four stages
which can offer examples of behaviours observed.
Prep, Play, Wind Down and Exit
Each stage contains several tasks and steps
but offers a useful method to understand overall the communal experience.
This is explained in more detail in the paper
Instead of playing Rockband as intended, group members George and Chloe end up sharing a controller that is meant for one person.
This slide showcases an example fragment
Many of these moments of ingenuity and creativity were captured as part of this study.
Based on our analysis of these fragments and the activity map, we developed three design implications for those wanting to design for co-located collective video game play.
These design implications, like the activity map, are one way of reading and interpreting the interactional work by the accompanied visits.
They are a starting point to build upon.
The first implication we offer in response to our findings is to design the space with "interactional accountability" and sequentiality in mind.
By designing spaces to be open and inviting, consciously accounting for the ways that people use the space ...
... we could encourage browsing, spectating between visitors and visitor groups as a collaborative, collective action.
The second implication we offer is to allow for documentation, nostalgia and personal storytelling.
The research demonstrated the groups gave meaning to the space and the exhibits around them by connecting to other external fragments in their own lives.
Encouraging this encourages "meaning-making".
The final implication is to allow visitors to subvert, extend and re-interpret games.
We found that leaving for spontaneous, playful and non-canonical interactions enhanced group cohesion, engagement and reward.
Enabling co-habited spaces to exist in previously solitary spaces.
Thank you for watching this presentation. If this work resonates with you, please stay in touch. Thank you very much! Bye bye!