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To date, most research on user experiences in digital games has focused on what happens during game play. In this chapter, we conceptualize the phenomenon of postgame experiences, that is, experiences gamers have once they stopped playing. We propose and tackle two types of postgame experiences: short-term postgame experiences that arise immediately after game play and long-term postgame experiences that occur after repeatedly and intensively playing a particular game or game genre. We present two focus group studies that offered qualitative insights into which postgame experiences are at play, to what extent, and under which conditions. The chapter concludes with a discussion and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To optimize a player΄s experience, an emotionally adaptive game continuously adapts its mechanics to the player΄s emotional state, measured in terms of emotion-data. This paper presents the first of two studies that aim to realize an emotionally adaptive game. It investigates the relations between game mechanics, a player΄s emotional state and his/her emotion-data. In an experiment, one game mechanic (speed) was manipulated. Emotional state was self-reported in terms of valence, arousal and boredom-frustration-enjoyment. In addition, a number of (mainly physiology-based) emotion-data features were measured. Correlations were found between the valence/arousal reports and the emotion-data features. In addition, seven emotion-data features were found to distinguish between a boring, frustrating and enjoying game mode. Taken together, these features convey sufficient data to create a first version of an emotionally adaptive game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic game balancing concerns changing parameters in a game to avoid undesired player emotions, such as boredom and frustration. This is e.g. done by adjusting the game΄s difficulty level to the (increasing) skill level of the player during the game. Currently, most balancing techniques are based on in-game performance, such as the player΄s position in a race. This is, however, insufficient since different types of players exist, with different goals, preferences and emotional responses. Therefore, to deal effectively with a player΄s emotions, a game needs to look beyond the player΄s performance. This paper provides an overview of two groups of potentially useful sources for dynamic game balancing: Overt behavior and physiological responses. In addition, we present EMO-Pacman, a design case that aims to implement these new balancing techniques into the game Pac-Man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the social relevance of digital gaming has been discussed and investigated in cultural and sociological readings, social context has been largely neglected in terms of in-game player experience. In this paper we present a study in which player experience is empirically tested comprehen-sively, with the focus on the interplay between player enjoyment and social context. Self reports on the Game Experience Questionnaire and an aggression state questionnaire were explored for three play configurations: virtual, mediated, and co-located co-play. Additionally, effects of familiarity and winning vs. losing were tested. Results indicate that a co-located co-player significantly adds to the fun, challenge, and perceived competence in the game. Aggression was influenced by familiarity and performance. The effect of social context was mediated by the level of social presence. These findings illustrate that social context is an important determinant of player enjoyment and should be incorporated in models of player experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of information technology systems and services are being developed for persuasive purposes, i.e. to change users' attitudes or behaviour or both. This paper proposes a taxonomy of general persuasive approaches, with interpersonal, computer-mediated and human-computer persuasion as the key types. It also recognizes and briefly describes related theories from social psychology, namely information processing theory, cognitive consistency theory, the elaboration likelihood model and Cialdini's influence techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical rhetoric was the first discipline concerned with persuasion and in fact still has a lot to offer. This is exemplified by a short discussion of the persuasive appeals known from classical rhetoric as well as the so-called ‘aptum-model'. It is suggested how these sets of rhetorical concepts may be developed into guidelines for persuasive design. Moreover, classical rhetoric can be related to social psychology in an interesting and informative way. This combination of classical and modern disciplines of persuasion however also suggests that there is an inherent limit to the power of persuasive strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persuasive interfaces in a class of interfaces belonging to a trend in contemporary HCI where user experiences matter more than for instance user performance. In this paper, we argue that in this shift there is also a shift in accountability, but that this shift tends to remain implicit in HCI. What makes a good user experience? To deal with these issues, we argue that HCI needs to develop a philosophy of technology. Two candidate accounts of contemporary philosophies of technology are introduced and discussed. First, Don Ihde develops a phenomenology of relations between human users, artifacts, and the world and technologies are seen as inherently non-neutral. Second, Albert Borgmann argues that we need to be cautious and rethink both the relationship as well as the often assumed correspondence between what we consider as useful and what we think of as good in terms of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of many online services today depends on the company's ability to persuade users to take specific actions, such as registering or inviting friends. We examined over 50 popular Web services of this kind to understand the influence processes and strategies used. We found that successful online services share a pattern of target behaviors that can be viewed as part of an overall framework. We call this framework the "Behavior Chain for Online Participation." This paper briefly presents the general idea of a behavior chain and applies it to understanding persuasion patterns found online. We then illustrate the Behavior Chain for Online Participation by applying it to the Web service LinkedIn and other popular services. Future research may identify behavior chains in other domains and develop new research methods for validating behavior chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender technologies are crucial for the effective support of customers in online sales situations. The state-of-the-art research in recommender systems is not aware of existing theories in the areas of cognitive and decision psychology and thus lacks of deeper understanding of online buying situations. In this paper we present results from user studies related to serial position effects in human memory in the context of knowledge-based recommender applications. We discuss serial position effects on the recall of product descriptions as well as on the probability of product selection. Serial position effects such as primacy and recency are major building blocks of persuasive, next generation knowledge-based recommender systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents synthetic embodied conversational agents, and how they can be used to explore the persuasive potential of real embodied conversational agents. Utilizing a novel Wizard-of-Oz style approach and a direct measure of behavior change we explore whether ‘ideal' embodied conversational agents have a similar persuasive impact as real people, and demonstrate the importance of visually perceiving for embodied conversational agents to be persuasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology shows that the effect of a persuasive argument depends on characteristics of the person to be persuaded, including the person's involvement with the topic and the discrepancy between the person's current position on the topic and the argument's position. Via a series of experiments, this paper provides insight into how the receiver's position can be modelled computationally, as a function of the strength, feature importance, and position of arguments in a set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how Web site user involvement affects perceived credibility of Web sites. The study determined the relationship between two variables: enduring involvement and situational involvement and the study measured the effect of these two independent variables and the interaction effects on the perceived credibility of Web sites. A supplemental analysis assessed whether the four groups produced by the factorial design varied with regard to the Web site element categories noticed during credibility evaluation. The research found that the interaction effect between enduring involvement and situational involvement significantly influenced perceived credibility. Additionally, the user's focus shifted to a more central focus when situational involvement was introduced and different Web site elements were noticed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of trust and face-to-face interaction prevents many people from purchasing online. Relevant research aimed at overcoming such problems is often based on the assumption that providing social information increases trust. These studies, however, have yielded inconsistent results, arguably because trust is usually treated as a unidimensional concept. This study targets the influence of social information on trust by taking account of the multidimensional nature of trust. Peer recommendations in product judgment tasks were hypothesized to affect consumers' product attitudes via social trust, rather than competence, if peer images are available and uncertainty associated with products is high. Results indeed support mediation by social trust, but only for experience products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the relative effectiveness of two different persuasive strategies embedded in the rationale of a website. The visitor is asked for his/her contact information either prior to or after having access to the guidelines for managing multimedia files offered by the site. Asking for personal data prior to access represents a reward strategy for obtaining such data. In contrast, asking for personal data after access represents a reciprocity strategy. In addition, the mediating effect of website features displaying "social proof" (such as visits counter) is explored. The analysis of the amount and type of contact information provided shows that a persuasive strategy based on reciprocity is more effective than one based on reward. Also, the presence of social proof features seems counterproductive when using a reciprocity strategy, while it seems to improve the visitors' compliance with the request when using a reward strategy. The results are discussed in terms of adequacy of the persuasive strategy to the specific website genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique capabilities of mobile, context-aware, networked devices make them an interesting platform for applying suggestion in persuasive technologies. Because these devices are nearly always with their owners, can sense relevant information about the context of their use, and nearly always have network access, they enable the principle of kairos, providing the right information at the best time. Relatively little work has examined providing opportunistic, right-time, right-place suggestions or notifications that encourage people to change their behavior. This paper first discusses some of the challenges facing designers incorporating suggestions into their persuasive technologies. We then review a set of relevant persuasive technologies, focusing primarily on technologies in the health domain. We then identify a design space that represents tactics for building persuasive technologies, particularly suggestion technologies. We then explore how this design space of suggestion tactics can be used to evaluate, compare, and inform the design of new persuasive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to develop a mobile-phone based intervention that would encourage parents to engage their children in daily literacy-learning activities. The intervention content included text messages for parents, audio messages for parents and children, and Sesame Street letter videos for children. Messaging to parents suggested real-world activities that they could use to engage their children in learning letters. Pre- and post-interviews indicated a significant increase in the frequency with which parents reported engaging their children in literacy activities after participating in this study. In addition, 75% of lower-income participants and 50% of middle-income participants reported that they believed watching the Sesame Street letter videos helped their children learn letters. More than 75% of participants reported believing that a mobile phone used in this way can be an effective learning tool, since mobile-phone delivery made it extremely easy to incorporate literacy activities into their daily routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of digital television technologies will rapidly expand viewer interaction with computer-mediated television. This paper reports on research demonstrating how new computer-mediated TV advertising models, including iTV microsites and telescopic ads, are superior to their linear counterparts. The authors argue that, in part, such superiority may result from the degree to which interactivity heightens mental engagement (facilitating a shift from peripheral to central message processing) and empowers viewer choice, thereby positively predisposing viewers to the persuasive content they encounter. The authors warn of potential negative fallout, however, where viewer expectations are not met. Although there might be potential ‘distraction' effects associated with processing both video and interactive layered content, testing among college students demonstrated no adverse effects associated with such concurrent message processing. The opportunities associated with further research in this new arena of captology are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a persuasive communication, not only the message but also the source of the message can influence the persuasibility of the audience. This paper investigates whether displaying a static image of the source can affect the perceived credibility of a message that aims to promote regular exercise. We find a clear influence of the source's appearance on the source's credibility and that this effect is topic dependent. We also explore how the perceived source's credibility for a particular topic correlates with the perceived credibility of a message on that topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodied virtual agents (called hereafter EVAs) are animated, virtual objects, which move, talk, and look like human beings. We propose a possible route which may help better understand how observed effects of an agent on an interface user occur. We relate the concept of embodied agent to literatures in marketing and psychology, which justify the introduction of the concept of attitude. A route of influence and a model are elaborated, proposing effects of agents presence and congruency, on attitudes, and behavioural and intentional dimension of the website power of retention, or "stickiness". The model is tested, results are discussed, research contributions and limits are commented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anchored in social agency theory, recent research has emphasized the importance of anthropomorphic interface agents' voice to impact learning-related outcomes. Nevertheless, literature on human social models suggests that the appearance of an interface agent may have important implications for its ability to influence attitudes and self-efficacy. Therefore, we hypothesized that visual presence of the interface agent would result in more positive attitudes toward engineering and greater self-efficacy than the presence of a human voice alone. In accordance to our hypothesis, results revealed that participants who interacted with the visible agents reported significantly greater utility for engineering, greater self-efficacy, and greater interest in engineering related fields than those who interacted with a human voice. Thus, the current work indicates the importance of anthropomorphic agent's visibility in changing attitudes and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]