At this point in the playtesting process you will have collected all the data from player observations and interviews, now you have to make sense of it all.

I prefer to refer to this part of the playtesting process as sensemaking, rather than more traditional name of analysis, as I think sensemaking more closely describes what you do with the data. We will not be using coding schemes, algorithms, or sophisticated tools to parse this data, we’ll simply be looking at it and doing our best to make sense of it. We will however be using triangulation to help make sense of our findings, this is where we try to form a coherent picture of the findings by using two or more forms of source data - in our case notes from player observations and interviews.

The data you will have collected will not be fully ‘complete’, there will be inaccuracies and omissions during observation and/or the interview process. This is natural, and it is the sensemaking process which aims to tell a coherent story with the pieces of information that you have, with an awareness that some information may be missing. You’ll need to get comfortable with this, and know that anything missed will likely be captured in a future playtest.

Sensemaking then, focusses more on reaching plausible explanations to what happened in the playtests, rather than aiming for accurate explanations.

To reach a plausible explanation for each of your hypotheses, we’ll follow a 2-stage approach.

1. Aligning on what happened.
   
   

2. Making sense of why things happened.
   
   

To add rigour to this process it is best if everyone who was present in the playtest could be present during sensemaking also.

Let’s examine each stage.

Key Takeaway

We’ll use a 2-stage process of alignment and sensemaking to understand our playtest findings - first aligning on what happened, then making sense of why they happened.

Next: 54. Sensemaking - Aligning on What Happened