research-article

Reducing Perceived Waiting Time in Theme Park Queues via an Augmented Reality Game

Authors:

Fabio Zambetta,

Marco Tamassia,

Florian ’Floyd‚ Mueller,

Rakesh Patibanda,

Jon SatterleyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 27, Issue 1

Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 30

https://doi.org/10.1145/3361524

Published: 22 January 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Theme parks visits can be very playful events for families, however, waiting in the ride’s queues can often be the cause of great frustration. We developed a novel augmented reality game to be played in the theme park’s queue, and an in-the-wild study with X participants using log data and interviews demonstrated that every minute playing was perceived to the same extent of about 5 minutes of not playing the game. We articulate a design space for researchers and strategies for game designers aiming to reduce perceived waiting time in queues. With our work, we hope to extend how we use games in everyday life to make our lives more playful.

References

[1]

Reza H. Ahmadi. 1997. Managing capacity and flow at theme parks. Operations Research 45, 1 (1997), 1--13.

Digital Library

[2]

Alessandro Angrilli, Paolo Cherubini, Antonella Pavese, and Sara Manfredini. 1997. The influence of affective factors on time perception. Attention, Perception, 8 Psychophysics 59, 6 (1997), 972--982.

[3]

Benjamin Avi-Itzhak, Hanoch Levy, and David Raz. 2008. Quantifying fairness in queuing systems. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences 22, 4 (2008), 495--517.

Digital Library

[4]

Julie Baker and Michaelle Cameron. 1996. The effects of the service environment on affect and consumer perception of waiting time: An integrative review and research propositions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 24, 4 (1996), 338--349.

[5]

Steve Benford, Chris Greenhalgh, Gabriella Giannachi, Brendan Walker, Joe Marshall, and Tom Rodden. 2012. Uncomfortable interactions. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, 2005--2014.

Digital Library

[6]

Steve Benford, Chris Greenhalgh, Gabriella Giannachi, Brendan Walker, Joe Marshall, and Tom Rodden. 2012. Uncomfortable interactions. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, 2005--2014.

Digital Library

[7]

Amit Birenboim, Salvador Anton-Clavé, Antonio Paolo Russo, and Noam Shoval. 2013. Temporal activity patterns of theme park visitors. Tourism Geographies 15, 4 (2013), 601--619.

[8]

Richard A. Block, Edward J. George, and Marjorie A. Reed. 1980. A watched pot sometimes boils: A study of duration experience. Acta Psychologica 46, 2 (1980), 81--94.

[9]

Marilyn G. Boltz. 1993. Time estimation and expectancies. Memory 8 Cognition 21, 6 (1993), 853--863.

[10]

Amber Brown, Jacqueline Kappes, and Joe Marks. 2013. Mitigating theme park crowding with incentives and information on mobile devices. Journal of Travel Research 52, 4 (2013), 426--436.

[11]

Richard Byrne, Joe Marshall, and Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller. 2016. Balance ninja: Towards the design of digital vertigo games via galvanic vestibular stimulation. In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. ACM, New York, NY, 159--170.

Digital Library

[12]

Laurence Casini, Françoise Macar, and Simon Grondin. 1992. Time estimation and attentional sharing. In Time, Action and Cognition. Springer, Dordrecht, 177--180.

[13]

Ting-Jui Chou and Chih-Chen Ting. 2003. The role of flow experience in cyber-game addiction. CyberPsychology 8 Behavior 6, 6 (2003), 663--675.

[14]

Robert Coe. 2002. It’s the effect size, stupid: What effect size is and why it is important. Retrieved March 27, 2017 from https://web.archive.org/web/20170327212724/ http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002182.htm.

[15]

Rachelle F. Cope, Robert F. Cope III, Anna N. Bass, and Holly A. Syrdal. 2011. Innovative knowledge management at Disney: Human capital and queuing solutions for services. Journal of Service Science 4, 1 (2011), 13.

[16]

David Coyle, Nicola McGlade, Gavin Doherty, and Gary O’Reilly. 2011. Exploratory evaluations of a computer game supporting cognitive behavioural therapy for adolescents. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2937--2946.

Digital Library

[17]

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Performance. Harper and Row, New York, NY.

[18]

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Isabella Csikszentmihalyi. 1975. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: The Experience of Play in Work and Games. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

[19]

Ellen Daniels, Jon Bryan Burley, Trisha Machemer, and Paul Nieratko. 2017. Theme park queue line perception. International Journal and Cultural Heritage 2 (2017), 105--108. https://www.iaras.org/iaras/home/caijch/theme-park-queue-line-perception.

[20]

Mark M. Davis and Michael J. Maggard. 1990. An analysis of customer satisfaction with waiting times in a two-stage service process. Journal of Operations Management 9, 3 (1990), 324--334.

[21]

David Deal. 2016. Augmented reality at Cedar Point: First impressions. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://web.archive.org/web/20170523074418/ http://superhypeblog.com/entertainment/augmented-reality-at-cedar-point-first-impressions.

[22]

Duncan Dickson, Robert C. Ford, and Bruce Laval. 2005. Managing real and virtual waits in hospitality and service organizations. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 46, 1 (2005), 52--68.

[23]

Abigail Durrant, Duncan Rowland, David S. Kirk, Steve Benford, Joel E. Fischer, and Derek McAuley. 2011. Automics: Souvenir generating photoware for theme parks. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1767--1776.

Digital Library

[24]

Stephen Fox. 2016. Dismantling the box—Applying principles for reducing preconceptions during ideation. International Journal of Innovation Management 20, 6 (2016), 1650049.

[25]

John Geanakoplos, David Pearce, and Ennio Stacchetti. 1989. Psychological games and sequential rationality. Games and Economic Behavior 1, 1 (1989), 60--79.

[26]

James Paul Gee. 2003. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computers in Entertainment 1, 1 (2003), 20--20.

Digital Library

[27]

Pengfei Guo and Paul Zipkin. 2007. Analysis and comparison of queues with different levels of delay information. Management Science 53, 6 (2007), 962--970.

Digital Library

[28]

Sonya Hamasak. 2016. 9 virtual reality roller coasters debut at Six Flags parks. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://web.archive.org/web/20170523074920/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/01/travel/virtual-reality-roller-coasters.

[29]

Chris Heger, Serge Offermans, and Joep Frens. 2009. Waiting as part of the fun: Interactive gaming in theme park queues. In Proceedings of SIDER. S. A. M. Offermans and H. A. H. Nagtzaam. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 52--55.

[30]

Gilda Hernandez-Maskivker and Gerard Ryan. 2014. Could managers consider waiting times as something positive. In Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Global Economy, Commerce and Service Science (GECSS’14). Atlantis Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 352--355.

[31]

Peter Jones and Emma Peppiatt. 1996. Managing perceptions of waiting times in service queues. International Journal of Service Industry Management 7, 5 (1996), 47--61.

[32]

Jesper Juul. 2011. Half-real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. MIT press, Cambridge, MA.

Digital Library

[33]

Jonathan L. Ledbetter, Amira Mohamed-Ameen, James M. Oglesby, and Michael W. Boyce. 2013. Your wait time from this point will be… practices for designing amusement park queues. Ergonomics in Design 21, 2 (2013), 22--28.

[34]

Arthur Levine. 2016. The line starts here: Designing theme park queues. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from http://web.archive.org/web/20170523075356/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/america/theme-parks/2016/07/25/theme-park-queues-lines-design/87540278.

[35]

Stefanie Luthman, Thomas Bliesener, and Frithjof Staude-Müller. 2009. The effect of computer gaming on subsequent time perception. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 3, 1, Article 2 (2009).

[36]

Brady MacDonald. 2015. Wet ‘n’ Wild Las Vegas Unveils a Water Slide with a Video Game Twist. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://web.archive.org/web/20170523075632/ http://www.latimes.com/travel/themeparks/la-trb-wet-n-wild-slideboard-video-game-20150121-story.html.

[37]

David H. Maister. 1985. The psychology of waiting lines. In The Service Encounter: Managing Employee/Customer Interaction in Service Businesses, John A. Czepiel and Michael R. Solomon (Eds.). Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, Chapter 8, 113--123.

[38]

Leon Mann. 1969. Queue culture: The waiting line as a social system. American Journal of Sociology 75, 3 (1969), 340--354.

[39]

Joe Marshall, Alexandru Dancu, and Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller. 2016. Interaction in motion: Designing truly mobile interaction. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’16). ACM, New York, NY, 215--228.

Digital Library

[40]

Mark R. Mine, Jeroen van Baar, Anselm Grundhofer, David Rose, and Bei Yang. 2012. Projection-based augmented reality in Disney theme parks. Computer 45, 7 (2012), 32--40.

Digital Library

[41]

Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, and Annika Waern. 2009. Pervasive Games: Theory and Design. CRC Press.

[42]

Florian Mueller, Rohit Ashok Khot, Kathrin Gerling, and Regan Mandryk. 2016. Exertion games. Foundations and Trends® in Human--Computer Interaction 10, 1 (2016), 1--86.

[43]

Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Darren Edge, Frank Vetere, Martin R. Gibbs, Stefan Agamanolis, Bert Bongers, and Jennifer G. Sheridan. 2011. Designing sports: A framework for exertion games. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, 2651--2660.

[44]

Nira Munichor and Anat Rafaeli. 2007. Numbers or apologies? Customer reactions to telephone waiting time fillers.Journal of Applied Psychology 92, 2 (2007), 511.

[45]

Donald A. Norman. 2009. Designing waits that work. MIT Sloan Management Review 50, 4 (2009), 23.

[46]

Volker Paelke, Christian Reimann, and Dirk Stichling. 2004. Foot-based mobile interaction with games. In Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. ACM, New York, NY, 321--324.

Digital Library

[47]

Philip L. Pearce. 1989. Towards the better management of tourist queues. Tourism Management 10, 4 (1989), 279--284.

[48]

Britta Renner. 2006. Curiosity about people: The development of a social curiosity measure in adults. Journal of Personality Assessment 87, 3 (2006), 305--316.

[49]

Heike A. Schänzel and Karen A. Smith. 2014. The socialization of families away from home: Group dynamics and family functioning on holiday. Leisure Sciences 36, 2 (2014), 126--143.

[50]

Holger Schnädelbach, Stefan Rennick Egglestone, Stuart Reeves, Steve Benford, Brendan Walker, and Michael Wright. 2008. Performing thrill: Designing telemetry systems and spectator interfaces for amusement rides. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1167--1176.

Digital Library

[51]

Holger Schnädelbach, Stefan Rennick Egglestone, Stuart Reeves, Steve Benford, Brendan Walker, and Michael Wright. 2008. Performing thrill: Designing telemetry systems and spectator interfaces for amusement rides. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, New York, NY, 1167--1176.

Digital Library

[52]

Jennifer G. Sheridan and Nick Bryan-Kinns. 2008. Designing for performative tangible interaction. International Journal of Arts and Technology 1, 3--4 (2008), 288--308.

[53]

Sofia Soares, Bassam V. Atallah, and Joseph J. Paton. 2016. Midbrain dopamine neurons control judgment of time. Science 354, 6317 (2016), 1273--1277.

[54]

Dilip Soman and Mengze Shi. 2003. Virtual progress: The effect of path characteristics on perceptions of progress and choice. Management Science 49, 9 (2003), 1229--1250.

Digital Library

[55]

Amanda Spink and Cheryl Dee. 2007. Cognitive shifts related to interactive information retrieval. Online Information Review 31, 6 (2007), 845--860.

[56]

Malin Sundström, Christine Lundberg, and Stavroula Giannakis. 2011. Tourist shopping motivation: Go with the flow or follow the plan. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences 3, 2 (2011), 211--224.

[57]

Scott Trowbridge and Christopher Stapleton. 2009. Melting the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Computer 42, 7 (2009), 57--62.

Digital Library

[58]

Lauren Wallis. 2015. The Best Interactive Queues at Walt Disney World. Retrieved May 23, 2017 from https://web.archive.org/web/20170523081513/ http://www.disneydining.com/best-interactive-queues-walt-disney-world/.

[59]

Richard T. A. Wood, Mark D. Griffiths, and Adrian Parke. 2007. Experiences of time loss among videogame players: An empirical study. Cyberpsychology 8 Behavior 10, 1 (2007), 38--44.

Cited By

Tepponen NBhatnagar PHämäläinen P(2024)Towards Understanding Waiting in Video GamesCompanion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3665463.3678791(263-268)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3665463.3678791
Shin JKim HPark HWoo W(2024)Investigating the Design of Augmented Narrative Spaces Through Virtual-Real Connections: A Systematic Literature ReviewProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642819(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642819
Chen MLiang SSmith G(2023)Stackable Music: A Marker-Based Augmented Reality Music Synthesis GameCompanion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3573382.3616071(22-28)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3573382.3616071
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Reducing Perceived Waiting Time in Theme Park Queues via an Augmented Reality Game
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

Recommendations

A player engagement model for an augmented reality game: a case of pokémon go
OzCHI '16: Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction

In this paper, we discuss players' engagement in playing Augmented Reality (AR) games. We present four concepts in playing AR games including: 'Player', 'Play', 'Presence', and 'Place'. We discuss each concept based on the individual user scenario using ...
Developing an augmented reality racing game
INTETAIN '08: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on INtelligent TEchnologies for interactive enterTAINment

Augmented reality (AR) makes it possible to create games in which virtual objects are overlaid on the real world, and real objects are tracked and used to control virtual ones. We describe the development of an AR racing game created by modifying an ...
HoloFight: An Augmented Reality Fighting Game
SIGGRAPH '21: ACM SIGGRAPH 2021 Immersive Pavilion

Augmented Reality (AR) provides opportunities to create exciting new kinds of digital entertainment, such as watching movies on a large virtual screen or playing games that interact with a real physical room. While a number of AR games have been built, ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Volume 27, Issue 1

February 2020

206 pages

ISSN:1073-0516

EISSN:1557-7325

DOI:10.1145/3372746

Editor:
Kristina Höök
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 January 2020

Accepted: 01 September 2019

Revised: 01 June 2019

Received: 01 October 2017

Published in TOCHI Volume 27, Issue 1

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Funding Sources

Australian Research Council

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

13
Total Citations
View Citations
1,527
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)208
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)24

Reflects downloads up to 09 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Tepponen NBhatnagar PHämäläinen P(2024)Towards Understanding Waiting in Video GamesCompanion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3665463.3678791(263-268)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3665463.3678791
Shin JKim HPark HWoo W(2024)Investigating the Design of Augmented Narrative Spaces Through Virtual-Real Connections: A Systematic Literature ReviewProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642819(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642819
Chen MLiang SSmith G(2023)Stackable Music: A Marker-Based Augmented Reality Music Synthesis GameCompanion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3573382.3616071(22-28)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3573382.3616071
Yang XMao WHu YWang JWan XFang H(2023)Does augmented reality help in industrial training? A comprehensive evaluation based on natural human behavior and knowledge retentionInternational Journal of Industrial Ergonomics10.1016/j.ergon.2023.10351698(103516)Online publication date: Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2023.103516
Greuter SMueller FHoang T(2022)Designing public VR installations:Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533454(792-806)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3532106.3533454
Dagan ECárdenas Gasca ARobinson ANoriega ATham YVaish RMonroy-Hernández A(2022)Project IRL: Playful Co-Located Interactions with Mobile Augmented RealityProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129096:CSCW1(1-27)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3512909
Moussa OAlshakhsi SAl-Thani DAli R(2022)Can Operational Transparency Enhance the Perception of Waiting Time? A Case Study from the Healthcare Sector2022 9th International Conference on Behavioural and Social Computing (BESC)10.1109/BESC57393.2022.9995186(1-7)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/BESC57393.2022.9995186
Fang HGuo JWu H(2022)Wearable triboelectric devices for haptic perception and VR/AR applicationsNano Energy10.1016/j.nanoen.2022.10711296(107112)Online publication date: Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2022.107112
van Rheden VGrah TMeschtscherjakov APatibanda RLiu WDaiber Fvan den Hoven EMueller F(2021)Out of Your Mind!? Embodied Interaction in SportsExtended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411763.3441329(1-5)Online publication date: 8-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411763.3441329
Srisombut TThamlersak SChaitantipong PSiriborvornratanakul T(2021)Design Thinking Approach for the Development of Theme Park ApplicationAugmented Human Research10.1007/s41133-021-00054-26:1Online publication date: 13-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41133-021-00054-2
Show More Cited By

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents