VIDEO GAME TAXONOMY & ONTOLOGY

Objective

Built taxonomy and ontology for tagging and categorizing video game concepts related to storytelling and narrative.

Purpose

Allows users to discover video game titles based on their narrative, mood, and story-related concepts, instead of only administrative descriptions such as platform and rating.

My Contribution

  • Interviewed gamers who play at least 3 hours of games a week
  • Conducted card sorting task in Optimal Sort with interviewees
  • Added and organized taxonomy concepts and alt labels
  • Created triples and connected related terms
  • Conducted corpus analysis to validate terms
 
 
Small section of taxonomy

Small section of taxonomy

Taxonomy

Our taxonomy consisted of over 500 terms and 14 top concepts.

 
Ontology

Ontology

Ontology

By creating triples and connecting related terms, we designed an ontology that may be used with search engines allowing users to find new games through unlikely terms, including finding games that depict similar narratives, moods, and story-related concepts.

 

Optimal Sort matrix results (click image to enlarge)

User Research

In the process of creating the controlled vocabulary and schema, we completed user research, which included interviews and a card sort (pictured left) completed by individuals interviewed.

Corpus analysis in PoolParty (click image to enlarge)

Corpus Analysis

Text corpus analysis was conducted in PoolParty to validate and refine the terms used in the taxonomy.