User Experience 8: Business, Ethics and More

Unit 8: Business, Ethics and More
Second term, January 2019 Dr. Marc Miquel Ribé
Course in User Experience
Bachelor Degree in Video Game Design and Production
Computer Engineering for Information System Management

Goal of the Session
Understand UX as a practice inscribed in a production team
and a company’s business strategy.

Overview of the Session (7A)
7.1 UX is Part of the Business Strategy
7.1.1 UX is Not a UCD Phase!, We are in Production
7.1.2 How We Introduced UX to Epic Games’ Production Pipeline
7.1.3 Keikendo Model: UX at Organizational Level
7.2 Business Strategy Affects UX
7.3 Dark UX: Not user’s best interest!
7.3.1 What is a Dark Pattern
7.3.2 Types of Dark Patterns in games
7.3.3 How do they work?
7.3.4 Dark Patterns in Videogambling
Goal of the Session: understand UX as a practice inscribed in a production team and
a company’s business strategy, which may give place to unethical practices.
Implementing UX in companies

“Llibre Blanc de la Indústria Catalana del Vídeojoc 2016”
Page 23 (Metodologies d’usabilitat i user experience (UX) utilitzades per les empreses de
videojocs a Catalunya).
[http://dev.org.es/images/stories/docs/llibre%20blanc%20dev%202016.pdf]

“Llibre Blanc de la Indústria Catalana del Vídeojoc 2016”
Page 23 (Metodologies d’usabilitat i user experience (UX) utilitzades per les empreses de
videojocs a Catalunya).
Summary of the section:
• There is a confusion between usability and user experience.
• User is becoming the center of the process. User-centered design is involving the user in
order to improve the product’s usability or to discover the context and user needs and
motivations.
• In a competitive market user-centered becomes much more useful to create better games.
• Traditionally, the user has been involved in the later phases of the UCD process in order to
verify the product. Lately, it is involved in the initial phases.
• The most employed method in the Catalan Industry is playtesting. Other techniques are
used (focus groups, heuristic analysis). Companies sometimes do not even know the name
of the techniques (!).
• The editor, designer, artist o programmer are the ones conducting the test (danger!).
Nonetheless, companies are interested in doing it better.
[http://dev.org.es/images/stories/docs/llibre%20blanc%20dev%202016.pdf]
The situation is not good: companies do not implement UX in Catalonia.

7.1 UX is part of the Business Strategy
How can I make sure that user research and experience is part of the company’s
strategy?
Having a UX mindset is not just offering compelling experiences to your audience, it is
about integrating it in the company and using it to do better business.
If we detect problems earlier… less time to fix them.
If we discover the user likes something… better and bigger business.
…
UX brings money. It is just a different perspective to add to the team.

• Introduce UX at a project team level is easy: just add ‘research’ at the end and call it UCD.
• No, it is much better to have a UX professional during the whole process.
• It is much better to have more iterations, and testing earlier.
We know that game production is concept, prototype, alpha, beta, gold, etc. We need UX in
each phase iterations.
7.1.1 UX is not just a UCD Phase, We are in Production

The producer may agree, but the dev team (blue people) may be too busy. They cannot read long
UX reports. They need applicable and clear feedback in order to make quick decisions.
We would like to have UX at a concept level, preproduction, production, alpha, beta/live…

• Conception/Pre-production:
o Work on the mechanics to have a good idea how the game will progress. You can draw a
big scheme and detect the key moments to test.
o Work on the target player. You can use the persona technique.
o You need to have a test plan (with user research: playtesting, interview, survey) for each
development iteration.
• Alpha:
o You should have a test plan in order to check the entire ‘playthrough’.
o You should have analytics ready and reliable.
• Beta/Live:
o You need to begin making sense of analytics data.
o UX key issues discovered earlier need to be solved.
User Research should be done as soon as possible.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jdnfhY9SE0]
[http://celiahodent.com/how-we-introduced-ux-to-epic-games-production-pipeline-gdc16/]
7.1.2 How we introduced UX to Epic Games’ production pipeline

“There are UX professionals within product teams, but the UX team provides extra help on UX
design if needed and provides the tools, methodology, and knowledge to conduct UX analyses
and UX research. The UX team is supporting all of these product teams”
How did they got here?

Hodent explains us how she introduced UX in Epic Games,
something similar to a three-step process:
1. Making everybody understand what UX is.
2. Detecting the misconceptions and working on them.
3. Creating the shift in UCD and working together with the team.

How do we know the entire organization embraces UX? Keikendo proposes us a model
to know where we are.
7.1.3 Keikendo Model: UX at an organizational level
[https://uxmag.com/articles/how-mature-is-your-organization-when-it-comes-to-ux]

1. Unintentional
UX experience is not considered proactively but emerges out of necessity. The common barrier is
unawareness or rejection of UX. You need to explain what it is, to train people, and communicate
extensively.
2. Self-referential
UX is considered, but developers think they know how users act and think without involving in the
process. Time and budget and usual barriers. Main tool for advancement is research.
3. Expert
UX has a dedicated small team, or team of one. Some user tests have been done. The barriers are
formalization, expansion and deepening of the process. Quantify User research and compare
projects’ success.
4. Centralized
Organizations have a UX team that works as a service that works on every project – it cannot fulfill
the demands. Most importantly, it has no strategic capacity like production or marketing. At this
phase, it is important that UX metrics are linked to business KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to
expose the impact of UX.
5. Distributed
UX is at the same level as finance, production, or marketing. Consolidating UX as a strategic area
within the organization will be important to obtain the senior executives’ buy-in.

At which phase Catalan video game companies are?

7.2 Business strategy affects UX
Video game companies are not NGOs, they want to make money.
XX century Cinema directors, baroque painters and video game companies are influenced by
who they work for. Economy has always driven and influenced creation.
Their creativity will depend on how economically safe they feel and their risk aversion.
But at the end of the month, they need to pay all the debts they have: with the banks, with
the investors, with the employees, etcetera.
This is no business class, but companies make their plans, and set their goals and controls in
order to know how they are progressing towards them.
Business goals and monetization influence game design the user experience.
UX professionals need to become useful in order to help the company achieve the goals.

“When you buy a game, if there's a friction at the beginning but you spent $60, you're going to try
and figure it out,” Hodent reasons.
“In free-to-play, that sort of frustration can be fatal for the game”.
Is the free-to-play limiting the user experiences?
Do we like more the games in which we have a bit of frustration in the beginning?
Are we putting a lot of pressure to the ‘free’ part of the game to be awesome…?
[http://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/66441/the-rise-of-ux-and-cognitive-science/]

[http://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/66441/the-rise-of-ux-and-cognitive-science/]
In case you preferred buying the entire game in advance, are DLC a way of making
better experiences or just another business strategy to increase revenue?
Tell me your experience.
Are there economical factors in games that make the experiences worse?

Monetization in games: do they spoil the freedom? is it ethical?
Games are not work: you do not get paid by playing.
Games provide freedom to explore other parts of life you would not outside the
game. They provide a deal.
If you accept the deal, you play.
The deal is that when you interact with a video game there is a set of rules and an
economical relationship: you spend time and money.
Usually, money is spent to enter the game, time is spent in the game.
This allows you to be free ‘in the game’. You trust the game.
If money is spent in the game, are you the same free?
Are some forms of monetization against this idea of playing?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0]
Does F2P hurt the user experience? This is a long debate.

7.3 Dark UX: UX Not In The User’s Best Interest!
User Experience is thinking about the user.
When you design a productive software (e.g. Microsoft Excel), you are giving happiness by
making things easier.
When you design a video game, you need to ‘catch’ the player and deliver an experience which
can bring frustration and joy.
The player accepts that and trusts the video game creator.
We know about the player (human cognitive aspects, psychology preferences, etc.) and we use it
to make more enjoyable games.
What if we used this knowledge not to design in the user’s best interest, but the company’s
best interest? Revenue, revenue, revenue.
This is Dark UX.

User Experience is thinking about the user. But Dark UX is thinking about the user
without taking into account how the user will feel.
The user is frustrated and the company takes advantage of it.
I once was invited in the World Information Architecture Day 2015 conference. They
asked me…
Talk about UX and Happiness! This is what I came up with.

Dark UX is the
antithesis of happiness.
It provides frustration.
What can we do?

7.3.1 What is a Dark Pattern?
Dark UX prioritises the company’s benefit even if the
user has an experience that might regret or would not
choose otherwise.
The term Dark Pattern was coined to explain the tricks
used in websites and apps to push users to do things
they did not mean to (darkpatterns.org).
• Sneak into the basket
• Forced continuity
• Trick Questions
• Hidden costs
• …

Here is an example of tricky questions.
Royalmail.co.uk takes it a step further. Two rows of check boxes: the first is tick to opt out, the
second tick to opt in.
Remember what we talked about being consistent to avoid perception mistakes? Here the use
is exactly the opposite.
[https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4640308/dark-patterns-inside-the-interfaces-designed-to-trick-you]
7.3.2 Types of Dark Patterns in Software/Web and Games

Here is an example of tricky questions at Curry.co.uk.

Three questions with a very different approach

Inducing to an undesired action in the game TwoDots
Example of Bait and Switch:

Dark Patterns exist in every possible interaction with a website.

Dark UX
[https://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs.-honesty-in-ui-design]
Designers implement them and companies take profit.
Good UX
Business
Situation
Most companies are usually here

In video games, there also exist dark patterns.
Please, read the article:
Zagal, J. P., Björk, S., & Lewis, C. (2013). Dark patterns in the design of games. In Foundations of
Digital Games 2013.

In video games, there also exist dark patterns.
According to Zagal et al. (2013), “A dark game design pattern is a pattern used intentionally by
a game creator to cause negative experiences for players that are against their best interests
and happen without their consent.”.
We note that dark here carries two meanings. It refers to the fact that designers are willingly
doing something unethical and that the players are likely to be unaware that they are being
manipulated against their best interests.
What for?
Time, money and social spread.
If you feel you did something that you would not have done in other circumstances (i.e. You
regret it), it is probably a game design dark pattern.

Zagal et al. (2013) classified the dark patterns according to different types. These are time,
money and social capital, as these are the objectives companies are aiming for.
1. Temporal dark patterns
While playing games in general is by some referred to as a "waste of time", the dark patterns
related to time here take more or less time than players expected.
• Grinding
This is performing repetitive and tedious tasks in order to make progress. It is pejorative because
it emphasizes time invested over skill (e.g. FarmVille offers grinding, while World of Warcraft
too). It just extends game’s duration. It can be a dark pattern because new players may not know
how much time the game will demand.
• Playing by Appointment
Games with this dark pattern require the player to be playing at specific time (or date) defined by
the game, rather than the player.
You may think of Farmville, Pokémon, Clash Royale…
The darkness of this pattern is not that strong if completing appointments is not required for
progression.

2. Monetary Dark Patterns
These patterns are all examples of players being deceived into spending more money than they
expected or anticipated. The player might regret to spend such a quantity, or to ‘lose track’,…
• Pay to Skip
Recently, games have begun to monetize directly the solutions to the challenges in their games.
Rather than encouraging a player to pay more to continue – they allow players to pay to make
progress in the game. Angry Birds does this in its levels, FarmVille allows you to pay not to need
help from others, etc.
• Pre-delivered Content
A certain game content or functionality is provided in the purchase of a game (i.e. the files are
already in the disc/files), but is unavailable until the player pays an additional fee. Street Fighter X
Tekken: in the US, the game’s original retail price was $30 and for an additional $20 players could
unlock twelve characters whose data was already included on the disc
• Monetized Rivalries
This pattern exploits player competitiveness; encouraging them to spend money they would not
otherwise in order to achieve in-game status such as a high placement on a leaderboard. This
pattern is colloquially known as “Pay to Win”. Candy Crush Saga, encourage this by explicitly
pointing out how well a player completed a level compared to his or her Facebook friends, and
provides enhancements for an additional fee to give players a competitive edge.
Not to say the ‘loot boxes’ in Hearthstone and other games – they are pointed at as gambling.

3. Social Capital-Based Dark Patterns
These patterns are all examples of players being deceived into spending more money than they
expected or anticipated. The player might regret to spend such a quantity, or to ‘lose track’,…
• Social Pyramid Schemes
Any games that encourage players to invite their friends to participate. Not all of them, however,
provide tangible in-game benefits for doing so, nor do they implicitly require players to make use
of their social connections in order to make adequate progress in a game. For example, Farmville
requires having other players as “neighbours” to make noticeable progress in some areas.
• Impersonation
Many social network games allow players to see representations of their friends (or other
players) in their own games. The problem is when the game impersonates other players by
communicating actions they never performed, thus misleading the player about the activities of
their friends in the game. In Farmville and Candy Crush Saga, this can take the form of player
actions being broadcasted without them being aware of it, and the description is as if the player
formulated it.
QUESTION: Which of the three types bother you more?

In web-software (mostly interface and usability based)
• They use the knowledge of psychology to induct player error or persuade him while using the
interface (sneak into the basket, tricky questions,…). These are the original. They are more
common in webs/software.
In games (mostly mechanics based)
• They create an scenario of tension with an economical solution (pay to skip, pay to win,
monetized rivalries,…).
• The learning curve or the game progression has unrealistic goals that conflict with other
activities in the player’s life (grinding, playing by appointment,…).
In web-software/games
• They are not honest with what they provide (pre-delivered content). They change their
promises in the end introducing extra charges.
How do Dark Patterns work?
QUESTION: Which Dark Patterns are based on deception and which on manipulation?
Please, check the darkpatterns.org website and the Zagal et al. (2013) paper.

Manipulation implies taking advantage of the users’ psychological weaknesses and it can
relate to motivation and perception. Many Dark Patterns are based on usability facts and
principles aimed at improving the user experience, and which are now applied in the exact
opposite direction with respect to their initial objective.
Deception works instead by clearly changing or hiding relevant information in order to alter
the decision-making processes. They are not as subtle as the manipulative ones, and they can
be identified in a clearer way.
Is the use of psychology always manipulation? Is there acceptable persuasion?
Manipulation and deception

Other deceptive tactics are based on not explaining or
disguising the real functioning of the service, so the user
assumes it works in some controllable or expected way
when in fact it does not.
For instance, one such famous pattern is the “near-miss”
in video gambling reel machines. In this sort of games of
chance, when three drawings are coincident (e.g.
cherries) the player wins a jackpot. When one of the
three is distinct from the others, we say it is a near-
miss. In terms of probabilities and rewards given to the
player, the near-miss is nevertheless a non-win (like
when all three drawings are different one from another),
however, the effects of a near-miss on the player’s
behavior are extremely powerful.
Several studies (Côté et al. 2003; Clark et al. 2009) point out that near-misses prolong the
gambling, hence companies tend to display more “near-misses” than there actually are, in order to
keep the player engaged and make him continue hoping and spending money. Such deceptive
strategies that hide relevant information and let the users make incorrect inferences (i.e. that they
are about to win) have been a controversial topic for decades.
The near miss: deception at its best!

Many game dark patterns are not as deceptive as the ‘interface dark patterns’ (those in the
web), but their effects can be devastating as well.
[https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world]

Where is the line between a good game design, the use of psychology and a dark pattern?
Where is the limit between the player’s life goals and his games goals?
[https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world]

I am cautious player. I want to know where I am getting in…
I always check howlongtobeat.com to know whether I can assume playing a game or not.

How can we fight dark patterns?
Spend 5 minutes thinking about it.

How can we fight dark patterns?
• By explaining them (if they are deceptive interfaces, in the site darkpatterns.org). Players can
acquire literacy and be critic with the manipulation techniques.
• By asking/providing key game information in advance (risk: spoiling the magic).
• By demanding better legislation against them. But which ones are easier to legislate against?
You need to cultivate something I called ‘Design Awareness’, the ability of being aware of the
outcomes of a particular design.
[https://uxmag.com/articles/throwing-light-on-dark-ux-with-design-awareness]
Users and designers can work to
develop their Design Awareness in
order to avoid the manipulative
patterns associated with Dark UX.

The truth is…Dark Patterns have a cost for the company too.
• Dark Patterns make a difference in revenue. But only if you are competing for a
very specific niche in which money is all that matters. You are not giving an extra
value compared your competitors.
• Dark Patterns have a very negative impact on branding. They are tasty money
today but ensure problems in a longer run.

+
Let me introduce you to…
THE VIDEOGAMBLING MACHINE!
Let us study some of their secrets:
• Narrative
• Mechanics
• Pseudo random generator
• Interface
=
7.4.3 Dark Patterns in Videogambling

=
+Disney
princess
Pamela
Anderson

Fortunes of Ra
Gypsy Moon
Time Machine
Gold Fish
Viva las Vegas
Caribbean Reef
Triple Chance
Mayan Magic
Sirenas
Hot Sevan
Texas Bingo
Duendes
Zozzle
Jolly Roger
Lucky Lady’s Charm
Doctor Cash
Moto Money
Hot Wild
Princess of the Amazonas
Circus
Dragons
El Tesoro de Java
Super 7 Reels
Casino Loco
Bingo Fire
Perla del Caribe
Seven & Stripes
Super Slots
Private Eye
Cleopatra
Party Games
En busca del Tesoro
Magic Sphinx
El golpe del Siglo
Lucky player
Mysterion Ruleta

And you are going to get a lot money!

‘…is what was Rome to the pilgrim’
Robert Venturi, architect

darkpattern#1
Easy in, difficult out

darkpattern#2
the Jackpot is always rising

darkpattern#3
Near-Misses: almost winning?

“Interior Design? The Best!”
Friedman, Architecht

Once in the zone, gambling addicts play
not to win but simply to keep playing.

darkpattern#4
Auto-play Button
“My body was there,
outside the machine”

darkpattern#5
credits are not money (!)

Is it any useful to know
the math? No.
Different players,
different Math.

Videogambling company – Player
Information asymmetry

Natascha Schull’s Comparison

In case you want to know more
- Natasha Dow Schüll. “Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas” (2012)
- Jesse James Garett. “The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the
Web” (2003).
- Bill Friedman “Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition. The Friedman International
Standards of Casino Design™” (2000).
- Donald A. Norman "Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things“ (2005).
- L.Clark, A.J. Lawrence, F.A.-Jones and N.Gray. “Gambling Near-Misses Enhance Motivation
to Gamble and Recruit Win-Related Brain Circuitry”. University of Cambridge (2008).
- Robert Venturi “Learning from Las Vegas” (1977).
- George Lakoff “Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things” (1990).
- K.A.Harrigan, K. Collins, M. J. Dixon “Addictive Gameplay: What Casual Game Designers Can
Learn from Slot Machine Research” (2010).
- J. Parke, M. Griffiths “The Psychology of the Fruit Machine: The Role of Structural
Characteristics (Revisited) (2005)
- J. Spenwyn, D.J.K. Barrett, M.D. Griffiths. “The role of Light and Music in gambling Behaviour:
An Empirical Pilot Study” (2009).
- Candice Jensen. Winning While Losing. University of Waterloo (2011).
- Gary Loveman. “Diamonds in the Data Mine” (2003)

Key Questions and Concepts (TakeAways)
• Implementing UX in a company is not straightforward. It means different
things at different points of the production pipeline. In the concept
phase, you need to create personas – a useful tool during the entire
production.
• Companies need to embrace UX, but their managers and employees need
to overcome some misconceptions and acquire techniques and
processes. Keikendo model becomes useful at discovering at which point
your company is.
• User experience professionals also help the company achieve business
goals (more revenue) by detecting usability problems, avoiding
unnecessary fiction, etc. But sometimes the business goals and
monetization affect the user experience.

• Dark Patterns are here to stay. They are too easy to implement. Yet, we
are getting better at recognizing them but this is not enough. We need to
put public pressure so companies pay the ‘shaming cost’.
• Dark Patterns may give you some revenue in the short-run but depending
on the competitors and their practices you may lose in the long-run.
Customers will leave you whenever they can.
• We should be careful as players and users and learn about all the
different dark patterns so they do affect us less. We should get organized
in order to speak out against them and if we work in companies they use
them, try to do our best to convince them of the good branding values of
honest UX.

In this 2017 session, Epic's Jim
Brown provides specific examples
of design techniques that
encourage the formation of
enduring emotional ties that could
enhance both retention and
enjoyment for players in game
design.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hjm9LLSICg]
• From Rational to Emotional: Designs that Increase Player Retention
The use the knowledge of psychology to persuade the player.
[https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/OmTandon/20161209/287185/5_Incredibly_powerful_F2P_monetisation
_patterns_using_Behavioural_Economics_in_UX_design.php]
• 5 Incredibly powerful F2P monetisation patterns! using 'Behavioural Economics' in UX design.
Price anchoring, free samples, endowment effect, etc.
Extra material

References and Bibliography
• All the references provided in the Powerpoint are valuable.
• Llibre Blanc de la Indústria Catalana del Vídeojoc 2016.
• Persona’s. Know your player. Interaction-design.org [https://www.interaction-
design.org/literature/book/gamification-at-work-designing-engaging-business-
software/chapter-3-58-player]
• How we introduced UX to Epic Games production pipeline [http://celiahodent.com/how-we-
introduced-ux-to-epic-games-production-pipeline-gdc16/]
• The rise of UX and cognitive science [http://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/66441/the-
rise-of-ux-and-cognitive-science]
• How mature is your organization when it comes to UX [https://uxmag.com/articles/how-
mature-is-your-organization-when-it-comes-to-ux]
All images used in these slides belong to the cited sources.

Dark UX Exercise
The objective of this exercise is to reflect on the dark patterns. Check out the dark
patterns on the website (the library) or on your twitter account.
Write a text of a maximum of 1000 words (2 pages) and answer two of the following
questions:
• Which dark patterns do create a worse reputation for a brand? Are there services
or brands that are not as vulnerable to bad reputation by dark patterns as others?
• What dark patterns give a more direct benefit? What dark patterns do you
consider to be more subtle and still generate important benefits?
• What dark patterns of those of darkpatterns.org do you think can be redesigned
by game mechanics to achieve a similar effect?
• What dark pattern do you think is more difficult to fight through legislation?

UX Course TakeAways
The 10 most important ideas: the course in a nutshell

User Experience relates to the user's emotions, motivations,
thoughts and attitudes while and after using a product/videogame;
its study requires knowledge and methods from different disciplines
in order to obtain data and introduce the right changes, with the aim
of improve the game in the direction the producer wants.
1 # UX Field

The User Experience professional is not a creative professional
(inventing mechanics or narrative), but aims at analyzing them,
presenting hypothesis, and later verifying their certainty by
conducting tests using empirical methods like playtesting, game data
analysis and surveys.
2 # UX Professional

Cognitive Psychology concepts/theories are the basis to understand
the user experience: perception, attention, emotions, motivation,
among others; without understanding them we cannot speculate on
what the user is experiencing or plan any test to discover it.
3 # Cognitive Psychology

Remember that every element in the game (narrative, mechanic,
physical space, etc.) contributes to the User Experience. We should
pay special attention to the interface, which is responsible to allow
the user to control the game.
4 # Game Elements

Usability is the quality that assesses how easy user interfaces are to
use, and is usually defined by five components or dimensions:
learnability (how easy is for users to accomplish basic tasks in their
first encounter), efficiency (once learnt, how quickly can they
perform tasks?), memorability (after some time, how easily can they
reestablish activity), errors (does it avoid errors or help recovering
from them? and satisfaction (how pleasant it is to use).
5 # Usability

Usable controls depend on several factors; this is, in first place they use
the basic ergonomics principle that important actions must be placed to
the button more easily accessed. In second place, they are easy to learn
because they offer a natural mapping, or because they are consistent
with other games from a particular genre.
6 # Controls

Playtesting/Usability are the most usual and balanced methods to
obtain knowledge regarding both behaviour and emotions; ideally its
data will be complemented by that obtained through surveys or
interviews (to know more about the user experience) or game data
analytics (to know more about behaviour).
7 # Playtesting/Usability testing

Each method is useful to obtain a different sort of data and no perfect
one exists. They all have certain limits and possible biases. In order to
choose a method, it is necessary to evaluate the costs-benefits, and the
capacity of our team to run it properly.
8 # Methods

The main issues we can find using game user research methods are
regarding usability, balance and mechanics, extra functionalities,...and
also related to narrative and aesthetics. Each design aspects is a
possible hypothesis. Each study provides some data that may help in
having new design ideas.
The difference between an expert and a non-expert is the quality of the
hypothesis.
9 # Issues and hypotheses

User Experience professionals share the goal of creating better and
more user-centered games, but they need to deal with compromises
with creative/artistic intent and business goals. Games with better UX
are usually more popular and therefore economically feasible (UX >
UE > Monetization).
User Experience field does not necessarily want happy users, just to
help the company… This is the origin of dark UX.
10 # UX and Business
UX for Games with UX/UI Expert Graham McAllister
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq_O05oriLw]

How can I keep learning UX?
Read this article:
[https://measuringu.com/ux-advice]

1. Study these slides and look for the references to clarify the concepts.
2. Follow people with UX interests or projects in Social Networks.
3. Learn about parallel design fields: web design, service design, etc.
4. Watch Youtube case studies provided in the course.
5. Learn to think analytically and weight the influence of detail.
6. Read research papers (you can find them in Google Scholar).
7. Follow conferences such as Game Developers Conference.
8. Go to Events with UX Professionals and practice in Workshops.
Game UX Summit, Barcelona Service Jam, Game Jams, etc.
9. Read popular general UX (not just games UX) magazines (uxmag, uxmatters).
10. Conduct UX testing in as many projects as you can.
There are many things we can do to learn much more about UX!
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