Papers by Melissa Rogerson
In this paper, we discuss exploratory gaze data findings from a series of co-located tabletop boa... more In this paper, we discuss exploratory gaze data findings from a series of co-located tabletop boardgame play sessions. We identified clear patterns of repeated gaze jumps between people and components, as players looked back and forth between various game materials in common play areas as well as their own and those of other players. Of interest was the repetition that occurred -- players frequently referred back to specific elements several times -- as well as the relatively short dwell times, which were typically well under a second. Contrary to our expectations, this gaze pattern occurred during other players' turns as well as the player's own. This work contributes to understanding of players' attention during play, and may be extensible to other forms of play and interaction outside the immediate traditional form boardgame setting.
Selected papers of internet research, Oct 31, 2019
This paper describes the intergenerational play of an Escape Room-style boardgame in a family set... more This paper describes the intergenerational play of an Escape Room-style boardgame in a family setting. Through analysis of five key moments during play, it shows that this style of game is congruent with the 'core' model of family leisure, and highlights the importance of naïve operation to avoid privileging particular social and cultural knowledge as a prerequisite for successful completion of a game. This is important for the design of games that can be played by intergenerational groups, as it focuses attention on the play of the game rather than on prior, frequently age-dependent knowledge.
This paper presents findings from a study of boardgamers which stress the importance of the mater... more This paper presents findings from a study of boardgamers which stress the importance of the materiality of modern boardgames. It demonstrates that materiality is one of four significant factors in the player experience of tabletop gaming and describes four domains of materiality in boardgaming settings. Further, building on understanding of non-use in HCI, it presents boardgames as a unique situation of parallel use, in which users simultaneously engage with a single game in both digital and material, non-digital environments.
Digital Games Research Association Conference, 2017
Increasingly, modern boardgames incorporate digital apps and tools to deliver content in novel wa... more Increasingly, modern boardgames incorporate digital apps and tools to deliver content in novel ways. Despite disparate approaches to incorporating digital tools in otherwise non-digital boardgames, there has to date been no detailed classification of the different roles that these tools play in supporting gameplay. In this paper, we present a model for understanding hybrid boardgame play as performing a set of discrete functions. Through a mixed-methods approach incorporating critical play sessions, a survey of 237 boardgame players, and interviews with 18 boardgame designers and publishers, we identified the key functions performed by the digital tools in these games. Using affinity mapping, we grouped these functions into eight core categories, which were tested and refined using a survey of 44 boardgame players and designers. This model defines and classifies the diverse functions that digital tools perform in hybrid digital boardgames, demonstrating their range and potential application for researchers and game designers. CCS CONCEPTS •Human-centered computing~Interaction design~Empirical studies in interaction design •Applied computing~Computers in other domains~Personal computers and PC applications~Computer games
In this paper, we present a foundation for understanding the elements that enable people with vis... more In this paper, we present a foundation for understanding the elements that enable people with visual impairment to engage with digital games. This is defined by the gamer's relationships with information and with elements of control provided by the game, and is mediated through in-game metaphors and affordances when gamers interact as users or creators. This work complements previous research exploring the points of view of gamers with visual impairment by focusing on the games they play and prioritising the relationships between the key enablers of access to digital games. Using the framework to examine existing and missing components will enable designers to consider broader aspects of accessibility in game design.
Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, Nov 7, 2022
Restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have limited opportunities for older people to pa... more Restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have limited opportunities for older people to participate in face-to-face organised social activities. Many organisations moved these activities online, but little is known about older adults' experiences of participating in those activities. This paper reports an investigation of older adults' experiences of participating in social activities that they used to attend in-person, but which were moved online because of strict lockdown restrictions. We conducted in-depth interviews with 40 older adults living independently (alone or with others). Findings from a reflexive thematic analysis show that online social activities were important during the pandemic for not only staying connected to other people but also helping older adults stay engaged in meaningful activities, including arts, sports, cultural, and civic events. Online activities provided older adults with opportunities to connect with like-minded people; share care, encouragement, and support; participate in civic agendas; learn knowledge and develop new skills; and experience entertainment, distraction, and mental stimulation. Our participants had diverse perceptions of the transition from in-person to online social activities. Based on the findings, we present a taxonomy of multi-layered meaningful activities for older adults' digital social participation and highlight implications for future technology design.
Games that feature multiple players, limited communication, and partial information are particula... more Games that feature multiple players, limited communication, and partial information are particularly challenging for AI agents. In the cooperative card game Hanabi, which possesses all of these attributes, AI agents fail to achieve scores comparable to even first-time human players. Through an observational study of three mixed-skill Hanabi play groups, we identify the techniques used by humans that help to explain their superior performance compared to AI. These concern physical artefact manipulation, coordination play, role establishment, and continual rule negotiation. Our findings extend previous accounts of human performance in Hanabi, which are purely in terms of theory-of-mind reasoning, by revealing more precisely how this form of collective decision-making is enacted in skilled human play. Our interpretation points to a gap in the current capabilities of AI agents to perform cooperative tasks. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Collaborative interaction.
Games and Culture, Jul 8, 2016
Hobby board gaming is a serious leisure pastime that entails large commitments of time and energy... more Hobby board gaming is a serious leisure pastime that entails large commitments of time and energy. When serious hobby board gamers become parents, their opportunities for engaging in the pastime are constrained by their new family responsibilities. Based on an ethnographic study of serious hobby board gamers, we investigate how play is constrained by parenting and how serious board gamers with these responsibilities create opportunities to continue to play board games by negotiating the context, time, location, and medium of play. We also examine how these changes influence the enjoyment players derive from board games across the key dimensions of sociality, intellectual challenge, variety, and materiality.
Boardgames date back to at least 3500 BCE, yet little attention has been paid to the experience o... more Boardgames date back to at least 3500 BCE, yet little attention has been paid to the experience of playing them. Today, boardgames are increasingly popular, with increasing visibility in popular culture as well as significant increases in sales. Although they are sometimes dismissed as an activity for children, boardgames have attracted dedicated hobbyists who have accrued significant knowledge of the practices, mores, history and culture of boardgaming. The aim of this thesis is to understand how hobbyists experience and practice boardgaming. In particular, the thesis seeks to understand how serious leisure hobbyists describe and define their hobby and how this guides and informs their practices. Further, I explore the effects of digitisation on the hobby, and the role of the boardgame's materiality not only in hobbyists' descriptions of their practices but also during play. I achieve this aim through a mixed-methods, constructionist, qualitative, approach which privileges the opinions and behaviours of hobbyist boardgamers and intentionally examines gaming from the different perspectives of games, gamers and gaming. In doing so, I address a significant gap in the understanding of boardgames as playable, played artefacts and as a site of interaction. Study 1 focuses on digitisation of boardgames. In this study I identified three key tensions around the conversion of boardgames to digital format, where boardgamers' and developers' priorities and wishes conflict. I argue that these tensions can inform not only the digitisation of boardgames but also the development of natively digital games. Study 2 focuses on hobbyist boardgamers. I found that hobbyist boardgamers enjoy sociality, intellectual challenge, variety, and materiality in boardgaming, and identified a range of specialist practices that create and reflect hobbyist expertise. This study examines some of the differences between hobbyist and casual boardgamers. It
Previous research on games for people with visual impairment (PVI) has focused on co-designing or... more Previous research on games for people with visual impairment (PVI) has focused on co-designing or evaluating specific games-mostly under controlled conditions. In this research, we follow a game-agnostic, "in-the-wild" approach, investigating the habits, opinions and concerns of PVI regarding digital games. To explore these issues, we conducted an online survey and follow-up interviews with gamers with VI (GVI). Dominant themes from our analysis include the particular appeal of digital games to GVI, the importance of social trajectories and histories of gameplay, the need to balance complexity and accessibility in both games targeted to PVI and mainstream games, opinions about the state of the gaming industry, and accessibility concerns around new and emerging technologies such as VR and AR. Our study gives voice to an underrepresented group in the gaming community. Understanding the practices, experiences and motivations of GVI provides a valuable foundation for informing development of more inclusive games. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → People with disabilities; • Applied computing → Computer games;
This paper examines the complex relationship between competition and cooperation in boardgame pla... more This paper examines the complex relationship between competition and cooperation in boardgame play. We understand boardgaming as distributed cognition, where people work together in a shared activity to accomplish the game. Although players typically compete against each other, this competition is only possible through ongoing cooperation to negotiate, enact and maintain the rules of play. In this paper, we report on a study of people playing modern boardgames. We analyse how knowledge of the game's state is distributed amongst the players and the game components, and examine the different forms of cooperation and collaboration that occur during play. Further, we show how players use the material elements of the game to support articulation work and to improve their awareness and understanding of the game's state. Our goal is to examine the coordinative practices that the players use during play and explicate the ways in which these enable competition.
There are very few studies on the usage of games by social workers in their activity. However, ga... more There are very few studies on the usage of games by social workers in their activity. However, games have been used as social lubricant (Walter Crist and al. 2016) since antiquity (at least!), and boardgames are often associated with togetherness and proximity of the players. It is also well documented that games can be used for pedagogical purposes. Both elements: Pedagogical use and togetherness, are central for the practice of social workers. The project ANPRAJEU aims to study the usage of boardgames by Socio-cultural workers (a barely translated type of social work in Belgium) and, for this presentation, with a special interest in intercultural contexts. We are just starting our research and are very interested to broaden our horizon outside the Belgium field by exchanging with you either directly through zoom, or through your reaction on twitch, and with our guest panelist from around the globe. For that, we will use the elicitation probes methods, by which we will suggest (or be suggested to) some sentences, keywords, anecdotes, diagrams, pictures etc. to discuss various subjects around our question
More than 18 months after it was first identified, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to restrict re... more More than 18 months after it was first identified, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to restrict researchers' opportunities to conduct research in face-to-face settings. This affects studies requiring participants to be co-located, such as those that examine the play of multiplayer boardgames. We present two methods for observing the play of boardgames at a distance, supported by two case studies. We report on the value and use of both methods, and reflect on five core concepts that we observed during the studies: data collection and analysis, recruitment and participation, the temporality of play, the sociality of play and material engagement, and the researcher's role in the study. This work highlights the different considerations that online studies generate when compared to in-person play and other study methods. Future work will present an in-depth discussion of the findings of these studies and present recommendations for the adoption of these distinct methods. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User studies; Field studies.
Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, Oct 5, 2021
Despite increasing interest in the use of digital tools in boardgames for both commercial and res... more Despite increasing interest in the use of digital tools in boardgames for both commercial and research purposes, little research has to date explored how and why these tools are used. We interviewed 18 professionals working in the boardgame industry to explore the combination of digital tools and tabletop play, which affords new experiences and opportunities for both players and designers. We generated five key themes from the interview data. Participants engaged with ontological questions about the fundamental nature of games; they showed strong opinions about the use of digital tools; they discussed the impacts of digital tools for game design as well as in their design practice; they raised concerns about the costs to develop and maintain such tools; and they considered how they affect the in-game player experience. From these themes, we generate five design principles for digital tools for boardgame play: traceability, completeness, integration, privacy, and materiality. Grounded in empirical data, these design principles guide game designers and researchers seeking to explore this novel design space. Our research focuses attention on the role of digital components in play and on the need for thoughtful implementation that considers the entire lifecycle of the game, from development through publication and, ultimately, archival access.
Quality of Life Research
Purpose Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic condition with a... more Purpose Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a chronic condition with a constellation of symptoms presenting as severe and profound fatigue of ≥ 6 months not relieved by rest. ME/CFS affects health-related quality of life (HRQoL), which can be measured using multi-attribute health state utility (HSU) instruments. The aims of this study were to quantify HSUs for people living with ME/CFS, and to identify an instrument that is preferentially sensitive for ME/CFS. Methods Cross-sectional national survey of people with ME/CFS using the AQoL-8D and EQ-5D-5L. Additional questions from the AQoL-8D were used as ‘bolt-ons’ to the EQ-5D-5L (i.e., EQ-5D-5L-Psychosocial). Disability and fatigue severity were assessed using the De Paul Symptom Questionnaire-Short Form (DSQ-SF). HSUs were generated using Australian tariffs. Mean HSUs were stratified for sociodemographic and clinical factors. Bland–Altman plots were used to compare the three HSU instruments. Results For t...
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Papers by Melissa Rogerson
References
[1] Silverstone, R., Hirsch, E., and Morley, D., 1992. Information and communication technologies and the moral economy of the household. In Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Routledge, London. Retrieved from http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/record=b3516141~S30.
[2] Stebbins, R.A., 2012. The Idea of Leisure: First Principles. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey.