1. Design Project 3
Who Am I?
Managing Gamer Identity
HCI/d Class 2015 Team F:
Yao Bao | Denique Ferguson
Jordan Jalles | Anusha Radhakrishnan

2. Table of Contents
3 – Predispositions
5 - Research
11 –Insights
12 – Concepts & Concept Systems
15 – Prototype
31 – Strategies
34 – Appendix
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3. Predispositions
What is our perspective?
Our identities unfold over time.
Identity management involves coping with the experiences that
we use to define ourselves
First impressions are important
In online games, the first impression of the community happens
when the player is still bad at playing. This sometimes leads
to more experienced players getting angry and yelling at new
players. It isn’t always possible to avoid negative experiences like
verbal abuse; how we cope with these experiences contributes
significantly to how we define ourselves.
Sports have been around for a lot longer than online
games.
Verbal abuse in online games is analogous to trash-talking in
sports; systems and strategies used to cope with trash-talking
could be a useful framework for coping with verbal abuse in
online games.
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4. What is our design challenge?
Help new players cope with verbal abuse in competitive
online games
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5. Research
How did we explore this challenge?
Online Surveys
Interviews
Literature Review
Observation - League of Legends Forums,
Official Documentation, Game Play Videos
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6. What did we learn?
What our target group is like
• Gamers
67% of U.S. households play games [esrb]
• “All gamers” was still very general group, so we decided to
focus in on a more specific audience
• League of Legend Gamers
90% of players are male
85% of players are between 16 and 30
How athletes deal with trash-talking
• View it as a part of the game; you have to focus and ignore it
• Reacting with more trash-talk causes you to risk getting
punished
• Taking trash-talk personally can make you play poorly, and
doubt your abilities
• Post-game critique re-affirms abilities, identifies ways to
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improve weaknesses

7. What did we learn?
How people react to abuse while playing online games
• They feel “frustrated”, “annoyed”, “angry”, “peeved” when
they experienced abuse (based on survey of 13 online
gamers)
The clarification to be made is that this type of verbal
abuse in online games isn’t necessarily the deeply scarring,
personal type that can be received from people we know; it
comes from people who don’t really know anything about us,
and so it is only targeting the specific gamertag sub-identity
which we are using to have fun.
• Mute communications, “rage quit”, lose on purpose, report
players
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8. What did we learn?
League of Legends (LoL) as a case study
• Notoriously mean to poorly performing teammates
Dying isn’t just bad for the score, it actually makes enemies
stronger and therefore makes the game more difficult for
your entire team
Teams of 5 are essentially locked into the game with each
other for an entire 40 minute match. Even if a player quits,
they have to wait until the match is over before they can play
again.
Muting communications can hinder game play, as teams that
communicate cooperatively tend to win more games.
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9. What did we learn?
• The “Tribunal”
The LoL community is self-moderated by a system called
the Tribunal. There are no specifically set rules. Players
are flagged by other players for negative conduct and then
ranked community members get to vote on the punishment
they receive. This is how players get banned and so-on in
LoL
• Banned players can always create new accounts
This puts toxic, skilled players in the same matchmaking
pool as new and unskilled players. Making it more likely for
newbies to be abused right from the beginning.
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10. What did we learn?
Technologies we could use to identify abuse
• Text analysis:
Connotation dictionaries
Emotion detection
• Audio analysis
Emotion detection
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11. Insights
How did this inform our design?
We can identify players that are abusive
• Immediately with text/audio analysis
• Over time as they are flagged by other players
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12. How did this inform our design?
Replicate the strategies athletes use to cope with trashtalk:
• There is no one talk players through the abuse as it’s happening
The supportive role present in athletic team games can go
missing in online games. This is a key problem worthy of
addressing in our design.
• Pre-emptive intervention; the player doesn’t have to explicitly
ask for help
We don’t want players to interrupt their gameplay. Our
design will attempt to pro-actively identify these cases and
deliver help fluidly where it is needed.
• Provide a post-game review for players to provide a context
for teamwork in games
Help them focus on the gameplay instead of the trash talk.
• Recast verbal abuse as part of the challenge of the game.
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13. Concepts & Concept Systems
Newbie games with abusive chat are automatically flagged
for intervention by mentors
• We will take advantage of the technology means available to
direct help where it is needed most
Middle-upper ranked banned players serve as mentors to
recover their accounts
• This gives them an alternative rather than starting a new
account (and likely raging at newbies again)
• These players have more time and energy invested in their
accounts and therefore more likely to take this option
• The higher rank will give their mentoring a tone of authority
and make new players more likely to listen
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14. What are we proposing?
New players are mentored through abusive chat
• Turns a negative first impression into a positive one
Players can review their game performance in relation to
chat:
• For the current match
Shows how the chat affects individual plays in the match
Along with highlights to positively reinforce good behavior
• Over time
To provide a context so that individually, bad games don’t
ruin a new player’s impression of a community
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15. Prototype
What did we design?
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16. 16

17. 17

18. 18

19. 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. 22

23. 23

24. 24

25. 25

26. 26

27. Post Game Screen
1. chat and performance history.
2. game highlights.
3. timeline of the kill/death/assists and chat stuff
1
2
3
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28. This chart has information for the past 20 games. As the
user flips through the different games, the one they are
currently viewing is highlighted on the chart along with
the associated date and time. The solid line represents the
Kill/Death ratio for that particular match, and the dotted
line represents the positive/negative chat ratio.
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29. We wanted to give the user a 60 second replay of the good/
bad moments of the match to give them a morale boost
and time to strategize as appropriate. By limiting the total
replay time to 60 seconds we were lowering the perceived
time cost for the player to something manageable.
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30. The timeline at the bottom shows how the performance of
the user and his team relates to the chat behavior.
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31. Strategies
What is the vision?
Platform independent
• Mentorship and post-game review system works across
multiple games, allowing players to uncover their “gaming
style”, and better determine what strategies work for them.
Turning the trash talk into a challenge
• The natural state of a gamer is rising to challenges. Re-casting
the verbal abuse as a challenge with the help of the in-game
narrator was part of our early iterations, but didn’t make
it into our final presentation because of priorities and time
constraints.
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32. Appendix
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33. Resources
Literature
• Video Game Industry Statistics
http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp
• League of Legends has 32 Million Monthly Active Players
http://www.destructoid.com/league-of-legends-has-32-million-monthly-activeplayers-236618.phtml
• Voice Analysis - Emotional http://www.beyondverbal.com/home-page/
• Connotation Dictionary http://www.connotative.com/EmoDict.htm
• Emotion Mining from Text
http://www.slideshare.net/shakthydoss/emotion-detection-from-text-usingdata-mining-and-text-mining
• Toxic Behavior Gets Entire League of Legends Team Booted from Tournament
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/toxic-behavior-gets-entire-leaguelegends-team-booted-tournament-1C8118274
• XBox Live and Verbal Abuse
http://theresidentanthropologist.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/xbox-live-andverbal-abuse/
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34. League of Legends Artifacts
• LoL Post-Game Screen
(Highlighting account names based on expletives; banned player using a new
account)
http://i.imgur.com/lGkCQ.jpg
• LoL Honor System FAQ
(About 1.5 percent of players have been punished by the tribunal)
https://support.leagueoflegends.com/entries/22083111-Honor-System-FAQ
• LoL Tribunal FAQ
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/tribunal/en/faq/
• Honestly i know i need to improve but don’t know how
http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/c/gameplay/baQJVNrk-honestly-iknow-i-need-to-improve-but-dont-know-how
• What is it about this game that brings out the worst of us while we play?
http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/c/behavior/es9TikY3-what-is-itabout-this-game-that-brings-out-the-worst-of-us-while-we-play
• Learn to Play League of Legends
(Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFSXipO3SMA
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35. Interviews
Tony K.
Baseball player
Harassment was from opposing team fans
Harassment targeted family situation from things they researched online
Verbal abuse affects younger/new players more than experienced ones.
Danny D.
Online Gamer (Casual)
Random player on an online game abused her, for no fault of hers.
Did not return back to the game.
Was pretty pissed/annoyed.
Mo
Game player for 8 years.
Keeps her gender identity undisclosed, because she does not want to get targeted.
Was called names by fellow players, when she made mistakes.
Would deflect their anger by blaming network issues for her poor performance.
Plays almost exclusively with her close online friend because “random people are
mean”
C. C.
Experienced Soccer player
Ignores taunting/trash talking whenever it occurs
Hated ‘name-calling’ within her team, which caused her anxiety.
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36. Personas
• Just graduated college
• currently looking for a job.
• Lives with her parents.
• Experienced with online games
• But is trying a new genre (LoL)
What does she want?
• Self-esteem boost
• challenge herself without being
harassed
Chrisanne Whyte
Age: 23
Status: New gamer (to a specific game)
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37. •Loves his Xbox.
•Got a new laptop for his
birthday.
What does he want?
•To make friends online.
•To get better at gaming.
•To have fun.
Patrick Gusse:
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Age: 15
Status: Intermediate game player

38. •Married.
•Works part time.
•Often gets banned in online
gaming communities.
What does he want?
•Bragging rights.
•To win!
Trey Weaver
40
Age: 30
Status: New gamer

39. Concept iterations
Initial sketches that helped us ideate.
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40. Initial sketches that helped us ideate.
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41. Initial sketches that helped us ideate.
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42. Iteration 1 - During Game play
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43. Iteration 1 - ‘You died’ screen to get user feedback.
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44. Iteration 1 - Abusive chat
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45. Iteration 1 - Encouraging words that pop up during gameplay
as said by the narrator.
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46. Iteration 1 - After Game over sketch (Refection page)
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47. Iteration 1 - After Game over sketch (Refection page)
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48. Iteration 2 - ideating
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49. Iteration 3- Ideating
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50. Iteration 3- Ideating - during game play
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51. Usability Testing
Usability Test Script - Round 1, 2013-10-16
Hi my name is __________ I am doing a class assignment, do you have time to
give your opinion on some sketches? It will take at most 5 minutes. I will ask you
to act out some scenarios with these sketches, thinking aloud as you go along. Say
whatever comes to mind – I’m not testing you: you are helping me test the design.
Just a warning, our test has to do with abusive language in videogames, so there will
be some language that you might find offensive. Remember, you can quit the test at
any time.
My colleagues will take notes as we go along, and may also take some pictures as
part of a requirement to show the work we’re doing. You can choose to stop at any
time.
Before we begin:
Do you mind telling me your age/age-group?
Do you play games online? Have you ever played League of Legends online?
To the moderator: is the participant male or female?
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What is League of Legends?
League of Legends is a birds eye view, 5 vs 5 fighting game played online game.
Matches are about 40 minutes in length.

52. For games you can play with friends or be matched with players of the same rank.
Scenarios
You’ve logged on to League of Legends for the first time, and you’re in the middle of
playing your first game with Juggernaut, Lakilla, and Shomum, whom you’ve never
met before. All of a sudden, your team starts losing the fight. You die for the first time
and you are unsure why.
Show the participant “You Died!” screen
What would you do now?
What do you think this screen does?
When you get back into the game, your teammates are upset that you died. Not
only do they blame you for the team starting to lose, but they begin to use abusive
language to demean you.
What do you think of this?
Show the participant “Game play” screen with abusive chat insert
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The match continues to go downhill. You and your teammates die many times
without making headway against the enemy. Your team mates verbally abuse you
the entire time because they are upset. Eventually, the match ends. Your team lost.

53. Show the participant “Post Mortem”
What would you do now?
What do you think this screen allows you to do?
Do you have any other comments?
Round 1 Results
Participants were not motivated enough to write down their reflections and keep
a journal. They wanted to quit game when it became abusive, and were reluctant
to replay video of a game that was abusive. One participant did not realize he
was being offered the opportunity to play a recording of the game; he thought he
was being offered the chance for a rematch. The narrator’s intervention was wellreceived: people felt that the intervention would prevent them from quitting the
game.
Some participants thought that the “Abusive team-mates” option on the re-spawning
screen survey would report the abuse to the game administrators; some also
confused submitting a reflection with submitting a report of the abuse.
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54. Usability Test Script - Round 2, 2013-10-20
Scenarios
You’ve logged on to League of Legends for the first time, and at the beginning of the
your first match you see this starting screen.
Show the participant “Game Start!” screen (with griefer warning)
What do you think of this?
The match heats up pretty quickly. You’re playing with Juggernaut, Lakilla, and
Shomum, whom you’ve never met before. All of a sudden, your team starts losing the
fight. You die for the first time and you are unsure why.
This is the screen that shows up when you die.
Show the participant “You Died!” screen (with narrator feedback)
What do you think of this?
When you get back into the game, your teammates are upset that you died. Not
only do they blame you for the team starting to lose, but they begin to use abusive
language to demean you.
Show the participant “Game play” screen with abusive chat insert
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55. This gets under your skin. You continue to play, but you’re not on your top game and
things aren’t going well even though you get a few kills.
What do you think of this?
What would you do now?
If you respond to them, what would you say?
The Narrator speaks up.
Show the participant “Game play” screen (with the narrator’s constructive feedback
according to user response)
What do you think of this?
The verbal abuse intensifies. For the rest of the match, Lakilla does little but curse on
and on about how terrible of a gamer you are, even though his score is worse.
What do you think of this?
What would you do now?
If you respond to Lakilla, what would you say?
In the end, Juggernaut and Shomum finish the game with scores higher than you.
Lakilla was the worst, and you came in third. Even though you had some good plays
in the game, your team lost by a significant amount.
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56. Show the participant “Post Mortem”
What would you do now?
What do you think this screen allows you to do?
Do you have any other comments?
If the participant clicks on view journal, continue to the next task.
Otherwise, say this scenario is complete and there is one more short scenario.
Show the participant the “Journal”
What do you think this screen allows you to do?
This is the archive of all the post-game reviews you have left. Your current goal is to
look up a game of League of Legends that you played in last week to review what
went wrong in a particular situation.
Would the search by tags function change the things that you enter for tags on your
next post-game review?
Any other comments?
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57. Round 2 Results
Some participants found the narrator unconvincing as a motivator, as it was not
human; they would have preferred to quit the game. They were also not motivated to
use the journal feature, as they didn’t understand what it was or what it was useful
for.
Conclusion
Based on these results, we decided to remove the reflection area and use it to show
enhanced game statistics instead, which would inform the user of their progress
in relation to chat events. To add the human connection, we decided to use
actual people to coach/mentor a gamer, and with the narrator’s voice playing a
supplementary role. Instead of offering a replay of the entire match, we offered only
1 minute of video clips highlighting the best and worst of the player’s performance in
the match, and improved the labeling of this screen to reduce confusion. A clip of the
one of the player’s good performances would start playing automatically when the
player visits this screen.
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58. Design Process
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59. Selecting problem space
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60. Interviewing User
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61. Selecting problem
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62. Usability test round 1
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63. Usability test round 2
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64. Creating prototype
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65. Putting them together
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