Steps to Research Goal Alignment Research goal alignment is defining the true goals and outcomes of research. A great research project requires defining awesome, meaty, and clear research questions. Without clear business goals or user goals, it can be hard to guide your methodological approach. ... »
Cue-Behavior-Understanding: A Tool for End to End Evaluative Games User Research Game user researchers often talk about the importance of measuring design intent. What does this actually mean, though? Simply put, the ... »
Cross-Functional Collaboration in Games User Research The ability to deliver great user research within an organization is a team effort. Finding allies of support beyond the research discipline will elevate a good practice to an outstanding one. ... »
Learning Plans for Games User Research Roadmaps The first time I had to put together a research plan to thus inform a year’s worth of budgeting was ... »
Directions to Discovery In our previous blog post, we made the case for doing exploratory research in a game development context. In this post, we get into the details of actually doing it– drawing from an example can help unpack the process. ... »
The Case for Unmoderated Exploratory Research A rigorous, iterative product development cycle includes plenty of testing, early and often. But what about when there is nothing yet ... »
Competitor Analysis Playtesting Competitor analysis playtesting is a user research methodology that works wonderfully well in determining best practices for player experience in games. ... »
What's the Point of Playtesting? Playtesting your game is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your game by focusing on real-world player ... »
Writing A Playtest Report: Tips and Tricks for Creating a Strong Post-Playtest Report So you’ve just finished a playtest and now you’re struck with the age-old question of “what now?” ringing in your head. You now have a plethora of information and data, and you need to be able to present it to others in a useful, productive way. ... »
Adapting to the new normal with unmoderated playtests Social distancing in workplaces is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and that means a whole host of challenges for ... »
Your Game’s First Hour: How Honing in the First-Time Experience is Pivotal to Your Game's Success The first hour as crucial time: how it can make or break your game Game developers know: the first hour experience ... »
Going Against Expectations: How to Learn from Unexpected Results One of the biggest pitfalls that can occur when playtesting a game is not having the critical distance to look at results objectively. With any research, it is important to take a step back and look at the results as a given, work with them, and move forward in a positive trajectory. ... »
