Playing both sides

Abstract

This paper examines the possibilities of evaluating the human computer interactions of an immersive Mixed Reality Live Action Role-play project. In this special game scenario, the participants of the game took over the roles of users and the computer system interacting with each other via a chat environment masked as a command line interface. After first inspection of the logs from the project a methodology that took different micro-sociological theories, as well as communication and language theories (in particular with respect to specifics of chat-based communications and related language behavior) into account based on qualitative content analysis and grounded theory approaches was applied to evaluate the data. Despite the limitations and spontaneous nature of the game both social and communicative phenomena in the physical and virtual world were identified. It was also verified that the interactions that took place within the simulated computer system followed known rules and expectations of human-computer interactions.