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Qualitative UX Research Course

Games User Research: Methods Across the Development Lifecycle

Zero Risk Enrollment: Receive a full refund up to the end of the first day of class.
Course features
Next Cohort Dates
July 8-29, 2026
Meeting Time
Wednesdays, 12-2pm EDT US
Course Type
Live Online
Duration
4 weeks
Price
$395
Credential
Certificate of Completion

Games User Research Course Description

Learn to Influence Decisions and Drive Product Strategy

This course teaches experienced UX researchers and game industry professionals how to apply research methods across the full arc of game development, from early concept through release and ongoing post-launch operation. At its center, the course guides you through the mindset shift games research requires, which is learning to separate intended friction (the difficulty, mystery, or struggle a designer wants players to feel) from unintended friction (usability defects that get in the way of fun). From there you'll learn to interview creative stakeholders for their design intent, select methods appropriate to each stage of development, and communicate findings inside a studio.

The course runs as a four-week Studio Simulation. You're assigned to either Team New IP, working on research for a brand new game still in early development, or Team Live Service, working on retention and seasonal content for an ongoing game that updates regularly. Sessions blend short lectures, hands-on workshops, and large group feedback. The course is decision-first and method-pluralistic, built to translate the skills you've already developed in other industries into the artistic and business frameworks games operate inside.

Games User Research Course Format

Learn hands-on in a Studio Simulation

The course mirrors the way research is used across the game development cycle, from early concept validation through the operation of long-running live games.

You'll work inside a four-week Studio Simulation. On day one, you're assigned to Team New IP (researching an early-stage game still being shaped) or Team Live Service (researching seasonal content and player retention for an ongoing live game). Each week's deliverable builds toward a final Research Brief covering design intent, methodology, recruitment, and stakeholder communication for your team's specific game.

  • Week 1: The Games Mindset (intended friction, heuristics, player motivations)
  • Week 2: Design Intent and Game Design Heuristics
  • Week 3: Choosing the Right Method for Each Stage of Development
  • Week 4: The Business of Games and Socializing Results

Sessions combine short lectures, hands-on workshops, and large group peer review. You leave the course with a research brief you could realistically hand a creative director on Monday morning.

Skills You'll Learn

By the end of the course, you'll learn how to:

Frame and plan games-specific research

You'll learn to separate intended friction (the difficulty, mystery, or struggle a designer wants players to feel) from unintended friction (the usability defects that get in the way of fun). That distinction is what lets you interview creative stakeholders for design intent, draft success criteria that tie artistic vision to observable behavior, and write research questions that measure emotional resilience and engagement rather than just task completion.

Choose the right method for the stage of development

You'll learn to place a game on its development timeline and pick the research questions and methods that matter most at that point. That means deciding between concept testing, rapid iterative testing, longitudinal playtesting, and surveys based on how stable the build is and how reversible the decisions are, and planning around the technical realities of games research, like unstable builds, specialized hardware, and the limits of remote playtesting.

Analyze, report, and communicate inside a creative organization

You'll learn to synthesize player data two different ways: strategic insight for leadership and tactical feedback for developers. You'll also learn to translate a studio's business model (one-time-purchase versus ongoing live service) into research priorities, and to deliver high-stakes findings to artistic stakeholders in a way that protects creative trust while still changing what the team does next.

How will this course help my career?

Lead games research decisions

You'll be able to walk into a sprint planning meeting, an executive review, or a creative director's office and make the call on what research is worth running and what isn't. The course gives you a defensible logic for matching method to development stage, so your recommendations stop getting overruled by gut calls.

Demonstrate applied games user research expertise

Whether you're interviewing for a games research role at a studio or pitching internally to lead games research at a publisher, you'll leave with a Research Brief that demonstrates your ability to think through design intent, method, and impact for a real game project. That brief is portfolio-grade.

Strengthen credibility with designers, producers, and leadership

The hardest part of games research isn't the method. It's surviving the conversation with a creative director who feels their vision is under attack. You'll practice the framings, the heuristics language, and the data presentation patterns that let you deliver hard findings while keeping creative trust intact.

Who is this games user research course for?

Researchers from other industries (SaaS, FinTech, etc.) looking to break into the games industry, as well as people already working in games (e.g., designers, project managers) seeking a foundation in research methods. In addition, recent graduates pursuing gaming or human computer interaction (HCI) degrees that are interested in game research roles or learning how to run quality research as part of other roles.

Prerequisites

Comfort with foundational UX research methods (interviews, usability testing, basic survey design). No prior games industry experience is required. Familiarity with at least one video game genre as a player is helpful but not assumed.

Mariya Vizireanu, PhD

Meet your Instructor
Mariya has 8+ years of research experience in consumer insights, public opinion, and player experience. Over the past 5 years, she has worked as an embedded researcher for Rec Room (User Generated Content Platform) and Jam City (mobile game developer/publisher). Currently, she is the senior research consultant for Vibe Insights Lab.

Mariya has led end-to-end research studies on both live and in-development mobile games, new in-game experiences and creation tools for Rec Room (a UGC platform with thousands of player-created games), and managed internal VIP player communities. Mariya’s work resulted in increased retention, spending, and improved player sentiment for a variety of new experiences and features. She also teaches Games User Research as a required course for undergraduate game design students at Northern Arizona University (a top 50 games program in the world).

Learning Outcomes

By course completion, you will confidently:
  • Categorize observed player struggles as intended friction or unintended friction, and defend that distinction to the team responsible for the build.
  • Select the right research method for a game's current stage of development, accounting for build stability, decision cost, and the studio's business model.
  • Conduct a Design Intent Interview that surfaces a feature's emotional and mechanical goals before any player is observed.
  • Communicate high-stakes findings to creative stakeholders in a way that protects the designer's vision while changing what the team does next.

Games User Research Course Syllabus

The course is structured around the Studio Simulation. From day one, you're working a real research problem for either Team New IP or Team Live Service, and each week's deliverable builds on the previous week's work. The course is tool-agnostic and works across methods. You'll see when surveys, rapid iterative testing, longitudinal playtesting, and concept testing each earn their place.

Week 1: The Games Mindset

This session establishes the cognitive shift required to do research in games. Much of what you've trusted about usability, success criteria, and engagement metrics needs to be examined before it can be applied here.

In class:
  • Lecture: how games user research differs from UX research, intended versus unintended friction, and what motivates players
  • Workshop: Friction Audit on a provided game excerpt, identifying intended versus unintended obstacles
  • Review and feedback: group discussion of friction categorizations across different game genres

Students leave with:
  • A completed Friction Audit they can use as a calibration reference for the rest of the course
  • An initial framework for evaluating which traditional UX heuristics apply to which game genres
  • An initial framing of their team's game (New IP or Live Service) through a friction lens

Week 2: Design Intent and Game Design Heuristics

Before you can research a feature, you need to know what the designer was trying to do. This session is about building the interview craft and the heuristics vocabulary that let you extract design intent without flattening it into a requirements document.

In class:
  • Lecture: Design Intent Interviews and game-specific design heuristics
  • Workshop: drafting a Design Intent Map for the team's continuous project game, naming the emotional pillars the design is meant to deliver
  • Review and feedback: peer review of Design Intent Maps across teams

Students leave with:
  • A Design Intent Map for their team's game, including its emotional pillars
  • A set of game design heuristics to pressure-test in their own studio contexts
  • A draft Success Criteria document that ties artistic vision to observable player behaviors

Week 3: Choosing the Right Method for Each Stage of Development

This is the methods-and-logistics session. The point is not to teach individual methods (you already know most of them) but to teach the selection logic and the technical realities that make games research different from research in other industries.

In class:
  • Lecture: stages of development (early concept, first playable demo, near-complete build, post-launch live operation), method selection, and the technical logistics of games research
  • Workshop: drafting the Methodology and Recruitment outline for the team's game, which is the first half of the Research Brief
  • Review and feedback: cross-team critique of method choices against build constraints

Students leave with:
  • A Methodology and Recruitment outline tailored to their team's stage of development
  • A documented rationale for method choice that accounts for build stability, hardware access, and the limits of remote playtesting
  • A clearer view of what they would and would not commit to running on a buggy, half-finished build

Week 4: The Business of Games and Socializing Results

The final session covers the part of the work that decides whether your research actually changes the game. Synthesis for two audiences, business-aware framing, and the specific craft of delivering findings to a creative director without eroding trust.

In class:
  • Lecture: the economics of one-time-purchase games versus ongoing live service games, synthesis for leadership versus developers, and stakeholder communication
  • Workshop: Final Research Brief presentation and peer review across teams
  • Review and feedback: instructor critique on stakeholder framing and decision impact

Students leave with:
  • A Final Research Brief covering design intent, methodology, recruitment, and impact framing
  • Starter templates for synthesizing research into strategic readouts for leadership and tactical readouts for developers
  • A vocabulary and framing strategies for delivering hard findings to artistic stakeholders
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