Why doing the boring stuff you think is not your job, really is your job | Emma Varjo
Channel: GRUX SIG
Date: 25/05/2021

When we think of our jobs or possible future jobs, we think of a subset of tasks and things we actually do. Things that are easily and clearly defined, such as "creating prototypes" or "planning research". But what about other stuff? The meetings, both formal and informal, we need to attend, documentation and reports we need to write, etc. Those aren't usually the first things that come to mind when we think about work, though those are arguably very important. Those are also often not something you get explicitly taught. This talk focuses on just this kind of "hidden" work, and how to become better at it.

Speaker
Emma Varjo is the UX Lead at Frozenbyte. She works hard to ensure great UX of the games made at Frozenbyte by using her knowledge of Human-Computer Interaction, running playtests and gathering feedback from players, and generally just talking to people a lot.

Reference
Gonzalez CA, Smith MA, Youmans RJ. Are Human Factors Students Prepared for Careers in User Experience Research? A Survey of Predicted and Actual Skill Utilization. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. 2017;61(1):1101-1105. doi:10.1177/1541931213601879 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1541931213601879)

Sections
00:00 Introduction
00:28 What do you do?
06:14 Hidden parts of our work
13:12 How to practice these skills?
16:47 Conclusion

About #gamesUR​ Conference
Games User Research focuses on players’ psychology and their behavior via techniques such as playtesting, analytics, expert analysis, and others. Game User Researchers aim to help game developers deliver players the best gaming experience possible.

The #gamesUR​ Conference is a biannual gathering of the world's top professionals in games user research. For more information visit www.gamesurconf.com.