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Love video games? Start your career making them better. Games user researchers run playtests to ensure games are understandable and enjoyable, and are a key part of making games that people love. The video games industry is full of passionate people who care about making fun experiences. If you love games, and want to make them better, consider a career in games user research. Drawing upon ten years of experience working on top games and helping people start their career in games How To Be A Games User Researcher is the essential guide on how to run professional quality playtest studies and get a job in the games industry. What's in the book? Discover How games development works and where research fits in How to plan, run, analyse and debrief professional quality playtests The importance of building relationships with game teams How to start a career in user research The skills required to excel at job interviews Who is this book for? This book is for: Students considering a career in games user research UX researchers looking to transition into games New games user researchers Academics studying games design, development, or HCI Game designers and developers looking to improve the quality of their playtests About the author Steve Bromley led research studies for many of PlayStation's top European games including Horizon: Zero Dawn, SingStar and the PlayStation VR launch lineup. He continues to work with games and VR studios to improve the player experience of their games. For the last five years, Steve Bromley has run a games user research mentoring scheme, which has partnered over one hundred students with more than fifty industry professionals from top companies such as Sony, EA, Valve, Ubisoft, and Microsoft, and helped many people get their first job in games. This book covers many of the topics that mentees have asked as they start their games user research career.

′I find your straightforward writing style an absolute joy, such a breath of fresh air!′ - Angie Ash, PhD student ′...thank you very much for your accessible language, clear lay out and practical applied approach. I suspect that this book will never be far from my side over the next 4 years!!′ - Mayen Konarski, PhD student Using straight-forward language Doing Qualitative Research Using Your Computer walks readers through the process of managing and streamlining research projects using commonly available Microsoft software applications. Drawing on a wide range of examples to demonstrate how easy it is to use such software, this guide is full of useful hints and tips on how to manage research more efficiently and effectively, including: - Formatting transcripts for maximum coding efficiency in Microsoft Word - Using features of Word to organize the analysis of data and to facilitate efficient qualitative coding - Synchronizing codes, categories, and important concepts between Microsoft Word and Microsoft Access - Efficiently storing and analyzing the qualitative data in Microsoft Excel - Creating flexible analytic memos in Access that help lead the researcher to final conclusions Ideal for those students or researchers who don′t want to invest in expensive specialised software packages, this guide will be an invaluable companion for anyone embarking on their own research project.

This book is a practical beginner′s guide to both conducting and using research within the context of social work practice. A clear and accessible introduction to applied research methods for social work students and practitioners, this text covers the key themes, debates and approaches, including: - The ethics of social work research - Conducting interviews and questionnaires - Focus groups - Observation and narrative - The involvement of service users - Analyzing data With practical exercises and reflective questions, this is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate qualifying social work students.