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We introduce a location-based game called Feeding Yoshi that provides an example of seamful design, in which key characteristics of its underlying technologies-the coverage and security characteristics of WiFi-are exposed as a core element of gameplay. Feeding Yoshi is also a long-term, wide-area game, being played over a week between three different cities during an initial user study. The study, drawing on participant diaries and interviews, supported by observation and analysis of system logs, reveals players' reactions to the game. We see the different ways in which they embedded play into the patterns of their daily lives, augmenting existing practices and creating new ones, and observe the impact of varying location on both the ease and feel of play. We identify potential design extensions to Feeding Yoshi and conclude that seamful design provides a route to creating engaging experiences that are well adapted to their underlying technologies.

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Abstract. This paper presents Treasure, an outdoor mobile multiplayer game inspired by Weiser's notion of seams, gaps and breaks in different media. Playing Treasure involves movement in and out of a wi-fi network, using PDAs to pick up virtual 'coins' that may be scattered outside network coverage. Coins have to be uploaded to a server to gain game points, and players can collaborate with teammates to double the points given for an upload. Players can also steal coins from opponents. As they move around, players' PDAs sample network signal strength and update coverage maps.Reporting on a study of players taking part in multiple games, we discuss how their tactics and strategies developed as their experience grew with successive games. We suggest that meaningful play arises in just this way, and that repeated play is vital when evaluating such games.

Field trials of experimental systems 'in the wild' have developed into a standard method within HCI -testing new systems with groups of users in relatively unconstrained settings outside of the laboratory. In this paper we discuss methodological challenges in running user trials. Using a 'trial of trials' we examined the practices of investigators and participants -documenting 'demand characteristics', where users adjust their behaviour to fit the expectations of those running the trial, the interdependence of how trials are run and the result they produce, and how trial results can be dependent on the insights of a subset of trial participants. We develop three strategies that researchers can use to leverage these challenges to run better trials.

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Designing for spectators and audiences presents new challenges to the design of technology. In this paper we focus our attention on understanding and designing for crowds as a distinct design topic. We present a study of one particular instance of crowd activity-football fans on match day. Close video analysis of interactions within the crowd reveals how crowds seeks to maintain membership through synchronisation of activity, but also how crowd support interaction between its members through co-ordination around shared objects and the 'snowballing' of songs and gestures. Drawing on this data we develop salient topics for HCI design for crowds, such as: reconceptualising interaction design to treat crowds as crowds rather than as groups of individual audience members; understanding intra-crowd interactions, via the use of shared objects and synchronising crowd interactions; and understanding the nature of peripheral participation in crowd activities, and interactions between distinct crowds. We also reflect on conceptual challenges that crowds pose for HCI as it increasingly develops its interests in public settings.

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