scholarly journals Results and insight gained from applying the EnergyCat energy-saving serious game in UK social housing

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-48
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hafner ◽  
Alba Fuertes ◽  
Sabine Pahl ◽  
Rory Jones ◽  
Christine Boomsma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Energy Awareness ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
The Uk

Concerns about climate change associated with the combustion of fossil fuels urge a call for widespread reductions in household energy use. Determining means of achieving this is a key challenge faced by environmental scientists. The current research presents insights gained from a 12-month empirical trial of new serious game for energy, ‘EnergyCat’; which was designed to encourage household energy reductions in the UK social housing sector. Effects of gameplay on consumption behaviours and energy awareness were explored using 82 UK social housing households (versus a no-game control). Results indicated the intervention did not lead to any substantive changes in awareness or consumption practices. However, post-intervention feedback highlighted several issues in terms of game design and usability that may explain why the game failed to change behaviour in this instance. We provide a framework of suggestions as to how the game design process could be improved in order to engage residents in future, including use of adaptive fonts for older residents, and provision of clearer instructions on gameplay objectives at the outset. In addition, researchers should ensure close collaboration is maintained with residents throughout the design process in future efforts, in order to maximise likelihood of ongoing engagement from this population.

scholarly journals Serious Game Design Process, Study Case: Sixth Grade Math

2014 ◽  
Vol 05 (09) ◽  
pp. 647-656
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Álvarez-Rodríguez ◽  
Arturo Barajas-Saavedra ◽  
Jaime Muñoz-Arteaga
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Process Study ◽  
Study Case

Towards Carbon-Neutral Housing in Scotland - New-Build and Retrofit

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-87
Author(s):  
Colin D. A. Porteous ◽  
Rosalie Menon
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Housing Associations ◽  
Total Consumption ◽  
Zero Carbon ◽  
Electrical Loads ◽  
Barriers To Achievement ◽  
Electrical Demand ◽  
The Uk

Taking its cue from the UK government's declaration that every new home should be ‘zero-carbon’ by 2016, this paper explores how close a flexible, prototype-housing model might come to meeting this target (accepting that there is currently some ambiguity between the respective official ‘zero-carbon’ definitions regarding off-site renewable supply). The prime aim is to design economically (affordable by housing associations) to the European ‘passive house’ standard of no more than 15 kWh/m2 for space heating and a maximum total consumption of 70 kWh/m2 adding in hot water and electricity. The model also prioritizes generous access to sunlight and daylight, as well as realistic levels of air change in a low-volume, intensively occupied scenario. Associated aims are: a) to meet thermal loads without use of fossil fuels such as gas or oil; and b) to employ architecturally integrated active solar thermal and electrical arrays to respectively meet at least one third of the water heating and electrical loads. Micro-wind generation is excluded from the study as too site-dependent. A subsidiary agenda is to achieve a flexible plan in terms of orientation and access, and to provide utility facilities that support the environmental strategy (e.g. drying clothes without compromising energy use or air quality). The paper goes on to address equivalent prospects for retrofit, briefly discusses institutional and other barriers to achievement, and muses on how much of the balance of the electrical demand can be met renewably in Scotland in the near future.

DICE

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Damien Djaouti
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Design Methods ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Generic Model ◽  
Universal Series ◽  
Industry Professionals

This article deals with serious game design methods. More specifically, it focuses on the following question: is there any universal series of steps to design a serious game? Or is the availability of several different design methods unavoidable? To try to answer this question, we will study a corpus of ten design methods suited to Serious Games. Most of these theoretical tools are coming from or aimed to industry professionals. This literary review will allow us to perform a comparative analysis over the various steps used by these methods, in order to build a generic model for the design process of Serious Games: the Design / Imagine / Create / Evaluate (D.I.C.E.) model.

scholarly journals Serious Game Design as Research-Creation to Address Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 160940692110461
Author(s):  
S. M. Hani Sadati ◽  
Claudia Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Rural Ethiopia ◽  
Construction Methods ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Participatory Arts

Research-creation is a growing practice in humanities that tries to balance the pace of socio-cultural inquiries with modern media advancements and qualitative knowledge construction methods. It refers to various conjunctions of “research” and “creation” (i.e., research-for-creation; research-from-creation; creative presentations of research; and creation-as-research) around an artistic component. Drawing from fieldwork with instructors in four agricultural colleges in rural Ethiopia, this article explores how a participatory arts-based serious game design process is explicable within the context of research-creation. This work’s change-oriented agenda led to developing Mela, a serious game, to educate and empower instructors in agriculture colleges to tackle sexual and gender-based violence issues in their institutions. Here, we articulate Mela’s design process, its artistic composition, and how we understand it from different angles of research-creation practices. We also offer our introspective accounts during and after the design stages, referencing culture and gender as critical concepts. Serious games are pedagogical products that are designed for a meaningful learning experience. This work deepens the understanding of how research-creation practice can benefit the serious game design field by ensuring the attention to both process and production.

scholarly journals Impact of Emerging Interaction Techniques on Energy Use in the UK Social Housing

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuli Liu ◽  
Obiajulu Iweka ◽  
Ashish Shukla ◽  
Georgina Wernham ◽  
Atif Hussain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Interaction Techniques ◽  
The Uk

Will Love Tear Us Apart: Adapting the Lyrical to the Ludic

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235
Author(s):  
Gordon Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Made In

This paper gives an insight into the design process of a game adaptation of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980). It outlines the challenges faced in attempting to reconcile the diverging qualities of lyrical poetry and digital games. In so doing, the paper examines the design decisions made in every segment of the game with a particular focus on the tension between the core concerns of the lyrical work being adapted and established tenets of game design.

scholarly journals The IDEAL household energy dataset, electricity, gas, contextual sensor data and survey data for 255 UK homes

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Pullinger ◽  
Jonathan Kilgour ◽  
Nigel Goddard ◽  
Niklas Berliner ◽  
Lynda Webb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Power Measurement ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Energy Awareness ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThe IDEAL household energy dataset described here comprises electricity, gas and contextual data from 255 UK homes over a 23-month period ending in June 2018, with a mean participation duration of 286 days. Sensors gathered 1-second electricity data, pulse-level gas data, 12-second temperature, humidity and light data for each room, and 12-second temperature data from boiler pipes for central heating and hot water. 39 homes also included plug-level monitoring of selected electrical appliances, real-power measurement of mains electricity and key sub-circuits, and more detailed temperature monitoring of gas- and heat-using equipment, including radiators and taps. Survey data included occupant demographics, values, attitudes and self-reported energy awareness, household income, energy tariffs, and building, room and appliance characteristics. Linked secondary data comprises weather and level of urbanisation. The data is provided in comma-separated format with a custom-built API to facilitate usage, and has been cleaned and documented. The data has a wide range of applications, including investigating energy demand patterns and drivers, modelling building performance, and undertaking Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring research.

Pilot evaluation of a group stabilisation intervention for refugees and asylum seekers with PTSD

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Mary Griggs ◽  
Cheng Liu ◽  
Kate Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Behavioural Therapy ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Group Setting ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Treatment Delivery ◽  
Cognitive Behavioural ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is commonly experienced by asylum seekers and refugees (ASR). Evidence supports the use of cognitive behavioural therapy-based treatments, but not in group format for this population. However, group-based treatments are frequently used as a first-line intervention in the UK. Aims: This study investigated the feasibility of delivering a group-based, manualised stabilisation course specifically developed for ASR. The second aim was to evaluate the use of routine outcome measures (ROMs) to capture psychological change in this population. Method: Eighty-two participants from 22 countries attended the 8-session Moving On After Trauma (MOAT) group-based stabilisation treatment. PHQ-9, GAD-7, IES-R and idiosyncratic outcomes were administered pre- and post-intervention. Results: Seventy-one per cent of participants (n = 58) attended five or more of the treatment sessions. While completion rates of the ROMs were poor – measures were completed at pre- and post-intervention for 46% participants (n = 38) – a repeated-measures MANOVA indicated significant improvements in depression (p = .001, ηp2 = .262), anxiety (p = .000, ηp2 = .390), PTSD (p = .001, ηp2 = .393) and idiosyncratic measures (p = .000, ηp2 = .593) following the intervention. Conclusions: Preliminary evidence indicates that ASR who attended a low-intensity, group-based stabilisation group for PTSD experienced lower mental health scores post-group, although the lack of a comparison group means these results should be interpreted with caution. There are significant challenges in administering ROMs to individuals who speak many different languages, in a group setting. Nonetheless, groups have benefits including efficiency of treatment delivery which should also be considered.

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