hello everyone today I'm going to present a study developing intentional relationships with
technologies: an exploratory study of players' experience with built-in interventions in games
My name is Zicheng and the co-authors of this paper are Alex Mitchell and Renwen Zhang
We are from the Department of Communications and New Media at National University of Singapore
First of all, I would love to give a brief overview of the background of the study
Currently, although gameplay brings a lot of enjoyment to people,
people also have problems with playing games
Their social relationship, health, and performance at school or work are disrupted
and they experience negative feelings such as guilt
In general, people are aware of the problem
and they want to strike a nuanced balance between play and non-play
To do this, there are normally two strategies
One is to use the self-regulation, while the previous study they have
already demonstrated the difficulties associated with the self-regulation
Another strategy is to rely on the intervention tools. However, existing
interventions are mainly stand-alone, which means that they are built in external apps or systems
In this case, this intervention are unable to consider the real-time human-computer interaction
such as what occurs in games
They also overlook how interventions might influence user experience with
targeted technologies such as players immersion in games
Therefore, in our study, we propose the built-in
intervention, which means that they are built in targeted technologies
and we explore what players experience,
both positive and negative, with the built-in interventions in games
and also how do players decide to play or not to play in games that have the built-in interventions
To answer these research questions, we employ the method of the field deployment and interview
We developed a casual mobile game jump and jump with three different kinds
of intervention design plus one non-intervention version
We conduct a four-day field deployment of the game using a within-subject design
We recruit 16 participants in total during the deployment
The participants were required to fill out the questionnaires measuring their game experience
Afterward, we conduct the interviews with all participants and we use the
thematic analysis to analyze our data
For the intervention design, we asked players to set a time
they intend to spend on the game before playing it
This approach was found acceptable to reduction-focused users in previous research
The first intervention we have is the in-game direct intervention
In this intervention, once the game reaches the time limits, a dialog box will pop out.
This design is commonly seen in external applications and it was found to be effective
in influencing the smartphone usage in general but inefficient in the games
Therefore in our study, we apply the same logic to
our built-in intervention and we wanted to explore what player's reactions to it
The second intervention we have is the post-game direct intervention
In this version, the dialog box only appears after the current round ends
When people are in a game, it is possible that they will immerse themselves in the game
Therefore, we put the intervention at the end of the game and see how people would react to it
The last intervention we have is the in-game embedded intervention
In this version, the notification is incorporated into the game mechanism
In previous research, the embedded design
was found to be less disruptive and more supportive of autonomy
Therefore, in our study, we also incorporate the intervention into the game mechanism
and explore players' game experience with it
After the deployment study, we conducted in-depth
interviews and through the thematic analysis, several themes emerge
We categorize the themes according to our research question
First, what are players' game experiences with interventions?
Both our quantitative questionnaire and qualitative interviews show that people
have a better game experience with the game that has the built-in interventions
Participants contend that intervention helped them to avoid the situation
where they continue playing the game until they feel bored
The intervention will give them a time to stop
and refresh, get excited, and come back to the game again
Despite the positive experience, participants also claimed that they encountered the
disruptive immersion and a reduced sense of control of the in-game direct intervention
Interestingly, participants' perception towards the embedded intervention split
Some think that it does not disruptive and they treat it as a part of the game,
while others think that it creates too much behavior and cognitive burden,
as people need to take efforts to land on the correct platforms
Besides, participants also felt mental stress as they claimed that the action of setting the
time limits makes them anxious about the time spent on the game instead of doing other things
In terms of our second research question,
which probes how intervention influenced players' decision to play ana not to play
We find that the intervention may backfire, as shown in our log data,
participants tend to spend more time in the game with intervention than that without intervention
Possible reasons emerged in our interview were that when participants set a low time limit,
let's say one minute, they would think that oh it was just one minute and they will extend it
Participants also report a tendency to wait for the intervention to show up
Aside from this finding, participants also contend that they were more likely to stop
when they had accomplishments including completion, progression, or achievement
This is also the reason why our statistics show that the post-game direct intervention,
which shows up when people reach their completion, is more likely to persuade people to take a break
In addition, participants mentioned that when they were angry, frustrated, or sad,
they would feel disappointed and might want it to stop,
so intervention showing up at this moment would convince them to stop
Furthermore, participants feel that their needs for the intervention are context-dependent
For instance, for those who are working or preparing for
the final exam, they find the intervention helpful
However, if it was on holiday or on weekend, people just wanted to kill time,
then playing the game for a long time is totally fine for them
In light of these findings, we also want to share some of the implications from our research
First, we think that we should rethink about the unintended outcomes of the intervention
While many studies have demonstrated the positive effect of the intervention,
our studies show the unintended consequences of the intervention
This suggests that the intervention can be used for questionable and unethical purposes,
such as dark patterns, where designers employ the intervention to keep players stay in the game
Our study also suggests that players' game experience was disrupted by
certain intervention design
This also entails the need to understand the unique user
experience with each technology when designing the intervention
Also, there are some trade-offs that need to be considered when designing interventions
For instance, the trade-off between the workload and effectiveness, as creating
workload might push people to self-reflect but it also increased people's mental stress
Second, our studies shed light on the enhancement of the user experience with build-in intervention
One possible reason for this is satiation, as people's enjoyment will reduce
in response to repeated stimuli, but disruption to consumption can
slow down the rate of satiation and result in a more enjoyable experience
Currently, the use of intervention is generally
avoided in the technology design as it might prevent user experience engagement
Our study shows that intervention may improve user experience
In this case, developers are encouraged to incorporate intervention into their product
Last but not least, we want to highlight how to support the intentional relationship
We describe the intentional relationship as a delicate
balance between use and non-use while still enabling enjoyment
One possible approach to do this is through the built-in interventions
We suggest designers should design the built-in intervention utilizing
people's sense of accomplishment and negative emotions
Also, designing for an intentional relationship entails an understanding
of the context when interventions are necessary
Possible approaches include personalization and customization
To summarize, our study explores building intervention in games to
help people build an intentional relationship with technologies
We find that such interventions can lead to both positive experiences and unintended outcomes
Interventions are more likely to succeed when players have a sense of accomplishment
and negative emotions
Besides, players' needs for the intervention are context-dependent
Thank you so much for your interest and attention
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or insights about the study
I'm looking forward to discussing the research with you
Thank you