Gameplay test at Roskilde Festival
June 2023
Roskilde Festival
UX Research Intern
How to organise a scope that is too broad for a user research study?
For a whole week, the team and I conducted user tests on over 90 festival attendees inside the barnyard of The Circular Laboratory, which is located in the middle of Roskilde Festival's facility. We used various methods to collect user data.
From left to right: Camilla, Oskar, Andreas and I.
Thrown into new surroundings
My first day of the internship was at the Roskilde Festival, where I was not a part of the planning process for user methods and had not yet completed my onboarding tasks. Heck, I have never even stepped foot inside the Roskilde Festival before. The team behind the planning phase was a former UX researcher named Elisa, whom I had never had the pleasure of meeting, and my then-colleague Danny. But since he lives in the UK, I was the only UX Researcher.
Too broad of a research scope
At the festival, three other team members (Andreas, a sound designer and a historian) and I conducted user research based on “trial and error”. It resulted in a week of gathering data from 92 participants. However, it lacked consistency because we forgot to ask the same questions for each user because of the amount of 7 methods and 46 interview questions. Due to the former UX Researcher who planned the project had to end her internship, the communication about the research goal was not clear and it resulted in many different demands on what to test and which questions to, to the extend of it being too much to keep an overview of.
The methods used were different depending on the day:
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We audio-recorded interviews.
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Had an available online survey.
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Usability tests.
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Observation notes.
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Screen recorded the game plays.
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Tested out a paper prototype.
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Tested out a QR code for extra special card decks.
Me observing a participant
Treating me like a professional
From day one, the other 3 team members asked for my advice and what to do next as if I had been employed for a long time. This made me more confident and made this adaptive situation easier to navigate in with ease. A laid-back and informal work environment that pushes me out into “the wild” and asks me to take charge is where I shine, based on what I experienced during this research project. I led the team by "trial and error" and found effective solutions for participation differentiation sorting and organisation for data collection gathered every day.
Result
The UX department and I transcribed 40 audio interviews, analysed 15 video recordings and wrote a report of 139 pages. While we found many insights to present to the other departments, the data was not as strong due to inconsistent data collection.
Quote
"An example of Helena's capabilities in leadership was of the
Roskilde Festival project. She independently conducted comprehensive user tests, managed data analysis, and delivered impactful presentations to our Game Design team. This work directly influenced our game optimization strategies."
- Andreas J. - Founder of GAMUCATEX