Embedded Files
Background and Project Focus
Background and Project Focus
The Pokémon Company International sponsored my team’s undergraduate capstone project in the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design & Engineering program. They tasked us with conducting a UX research study examining how their products could optimize players' ability to learn the Pokémon Trading Card Game and maximize the game's player retention. I worked alongside three other students in the program in a collaborative structure, dynamically sharing all responsibilities with each of us having specific points of focus. During the capstone project, I was primarily responsible for corresponding with our stakeholders, overseeing our research methodology, and crafting our insights into a detailed research report.
Project Planning
Project Planning
With the task in mind, our team centered ourselves around the following guiding design question: “How might we improve first-time player experiences with the Pokémon Trading Card Game to better support player education and foster long-term player retention?” I worked with our primary stakeholder to understand their needs and eventually helped propose a month-long intensive diary study where participants would be given different on-shelf Pokémon Trading Card Game products of interest. Pursuing a diary study enabled us to see recurring joys or growing pains, which provided an insight into the participants’ journeys as Pokémon Trading Card Game players. This decision helped identify participants’ changes in their playing habits and attitudes, which provided insight into their game knowledge and possible retention within the game’s ecosystem.
Recruitment
Recruitment
The project sponsor’s and team’s lack of existing recruitment infrastructure served as a limiting factor for certain proper sampling techniques. As such, I acknowledged very early on that recruitment was limited due to some level of convenience sampling. Regardless, due to establishing an inclusion survey that helped control participant experience and resources, the project was able to deliver useful insights when the eventual analysis was scoped accordingly. I created a screener survey with a consent form included that helped us quickly identify and recruit participants who fit the project’s inclusion criteria. The team set up a booth on UW’s campus and employed some snowball recruitment to meet our goal of sixteen participants within a one-week timeline.
Inclusion Criteria:
First-time player of TCG (no prior experience playing game itself)
Does not own an abundance of Pokémon TCG products
Ability to record their experiences (video)
Time availability for initial and closing interviews
Over the age of 18 (we will not be conducting our studies with minors)
Methodology
Methodology
Our four-week diary study began with an introductory interview, in which the team met with each of the sixteen participants. During these interviews, which lasted up to an hour each, the participants discussed their familiarity with the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the larger Pokémon IP, and trading card games in general. They were provided with one of four products being tested, and they provided their initial thoughts and expectations. Over the course of the next four weeks, the participants were required to attempt to play the game once a week. They reported their experience via survey at the end of each week, documenting how often they played, how much they felt they understood, and how they felt about the game and their provided product. At the end of the experience, the participants were each brought in for one final interview to discuss how their experience went and how their knowledge and attitudes surrounding the game evolved over time. Our diary study’s structure gave us great insight into what drove highs and lows of the experience. After each interview and survey response, the team was able to perform thematic analysis to identify trends that linked experiences between participants in one product group and differentiated them from experiences in others.
Findings
Findings
At the end of the capstone project, we assembled a table for the HCDE program's capstone showcase, where we discussed our methodology and our journey with respect to the limitations to our NDA. We also put together an extensive research report with insights, actionable suggestions, and potential follow-up research ideas was delivered to help inform our primary stakeholder’s marketing strategy. In the report, we highlight commonalities in the different products that participants cited as supporting or hampering their ability to learn the game. Given that the project was only a month long, we extrapolated participants' attitudes over the course of their four weeks, with the understanding that we were still using a relatively short timeframe to do so, and identified which products were likely to lead to long-term engagement.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse