Ixd Masters Thesis I
Title: Enhancing Game Jam Experiences: Finding more productive and focused group work interactions through establishing a framework
This project was made for the Malmö University Interaction Design Master thesis paper.
The paper can be found on Malmö University Electronic Publishing (MUEP) (PDF, 1.53MB).
The deliverables/prototypes may also be downloaded/viewed.
A screenshot of the latest version of the Mutter prototype. Looking back this is quite impressive as proof-of-concept as it was designed and works as intended.
Thoughts and findings
While concluding the paper, I admit that there will be many possibilities which can be explored that will get more productive and focused group work interactions. Though the point of the paper is that the framework established helps create such opportunities like the Mutter application created.
The neat thing about game jam scenarios is that there are constant evaluation periods necessary to get the best output from team members. In physical jams it will involve being interrupted, often at sensitive moments, and usually with a lot of chaos involved.
Addressing group work through a foundation (and framework) allows for more positive interactions during the game jam event. It was also observed that this extra medium should not add overhead to the work tasks and the overall experience. In this way adding a 'digital overlay' introduces structure and an open dialogue for team members.
In essence the Mutter application was a chatroom where users would comment about what they are doing and approximately for how long. There was also a feature which pinged everyone for any announcements or arranged meetings, and ways to manipulate timer durations.
The initial sketch showing what thoughts I had concerning layout and features to include. There was a small, collaborating space on the side which was later removed as it felt more like added distraction.
In reality the Mutter application would also be available as a web app/service. Verification would go through e-mail as it does other online services. And ideally the webapp would be preferred unless there's limited to no access to internet. It was conceived as a prototype for use in the thesis paper as it was a distilled version of what I was exploring as a possibility at that time.
I learnt a lot from this paper. Some of that through a hard lesson of being overly ambitious with research. This paper was the result of thesis work that took half the time it should take for such a paper.
The screenshots here show the easily accessible help menu and the initial state of the app where you type in your jammer name.
I also had fun designing around a playful constraint which involved limiting input in pixels and the layout as a whole. The jammer name screen introduces this concept of being limited/concise, as the username is limited by input length.
If I had to redesign Mutter for use today, there would be a lot that would change. I would still like to keep the chatroom aspect, though would allow timers to be added more easily through dialog prompts and other means. Snapshots of a user's current screen/progress may be requested and consented to by other users. And, hopefully, documentation may also be generated in this fashion organically.
One thing I am proud of about this paper is that it has been cited over the years. I have read through each of the papers out of interest and found comfort in having contributed in a way that caused further research.
A screenshot showing the Google Scholar result.
The abstract
The thesis will focus on the methods of establishing group work objectives and in turn create focused groups that spend more time being productive and enjoying their efforts than having to go through trivial yet troublesome organization and structure sorting evaluation periods.
