Say cheese! Games for successful academic and student Networking

Emily I.M. Collins, Anna L. Cox, Frank Lee

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceedingChapter in a published conference proceeding

3 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Networking is a vital but stressful aspect of academic life, one which digital games may be able to make more playful. Existing examples of networking games require players to interact as part of the game-play, and therefore do not bypass the stressful part of networking. In contrast, many other games successfully encourage interaction between players whilst avoiding causing stress to the players. Flashbulb is a networking game that only requires a photograph of another player to be taken in order to progress. Players can choose whether to start a conversation depending on the target and situation. Thematic analysis of interviews with Flashbulb players found that despite not including an icebreaking requirement, it encouraged networking and widened the scope of those spoken to. The act of photographing players promoted conversations without forcing players to engage in uncomfortable discussions. We make recommendations for the design of future iterations of networking games.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI PLAY 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages105-115
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781450344562
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Oct 2016
Event3rd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2016 - Austin, USA United States
Duration: 16 Oct 201619 Oct 2016

Conference

Conference3rd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2016
Country/TerritoryUSA United States
CityAustin
Period16/10/1619/10/16

Keywords

  • Digital games
  • Icebreaker games
  • Networking

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human-Computer Interaction

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Say cheese! Games for successful academic and student Networking'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this