scholarly journals An Approach to Accessible Serious Games for People with Dyslexia

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2507
Author(s):  
Angel Jaramillo-Alcázar ◽  
Eduardo Venegas ◽  
Santiago Criollo-C ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora

Dyslexia is a cognitive disorder that affects the evolutionary ability to read, write, and speak in people, affecting the correct learning of a large percentage of the population worldwide. In fact, incorrect learning is caused because the educational system does not take into consideration the accessibility parameters that people with dyslexia need to maintain a sustainable educational level equal to others. Moreover, the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, has been deployed in education programs, offering many benefits; however, the lack of accessibility of those devices creates new barriers to students with dyslexia that hinder their education. With the aim of reducing these barriers, this paper presents an approach to the development of accessible serious games games for children with dyslexia. As a case study, a serious game based on a previously proposed serious game development method and a new set of accessibility guidelines for people with dyslexia is presented. The main purpose of the serious video game is to improve the treatment of dyslexia, through the collection of data obtained from two puzzles designed to train certain cognitive areas that affect this disability. This article has a double contribution: on the one hand, the guidelines and the method that can help video game developers and therapists to develop accessible serious games for people with dyslexia and, on the other hand, the two specific serious games that can be used by therapists, family members and people with dyslexia themselves.

2022 ◽  
pp. 1050-1069
Author(s):  
Angel Jaramillo-Alcázar ◽  
Santiago Criollo-C ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora

Accessibility has been defined as the ability of an object to be used despite the condition or disability of a person. However, it is a feature that often has not been taken into account in the design of products or services, and the mobile serious game market is no exception. Accessibility guidelines were defined through the consolidation of different initiatives and good practices of video game developers as well as groups interested in providing accessibility to video games. Once the guidelines were defined, a method for evaluating the accessibility of mobile serious games was developed and applied in a mobile serious game. The purpose of this document is to propose an evaluation tool for those who wish to develop accessible mobile serious games for people with impairments and improve inclusive education.


Author(s):  
Angel Jaramillo-Alcázar ◽  
Santiago Criollo-C ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora

Accessibility has been defined as the ability of an object to be used despite the condition or disability of a person. However, it is a feature that often has not been taken into account in the design of products or services, and the mobile serious game market is no exception. Accessibility guidelines were defined through the consolidation of different initiatives and good practices of video game developers as well as groups interested in providing accessibility to video games. Once the guidelines were defined, a method for evaluating the accessibility of mobile serious games was developed and applied in a mobile serious game. The purpose of this document is to propose an evaluation tool for those who wish to develop accessible mobile serious games for people with impairments and improve inclusive education.


Author(s):  
Christoffer Mitch C. Cerda

This paper uses the author’s experiences of teaching the Filipino module of a multidisciplinary video game development class as a case study in teaching Filipino culture and identity as an element of video game development. A preliminary definition of “Filipino video game” as having Filipino narratives and subject matter, made by Filipino video game developers, and catering to a Filipino audience, is proposed. The realities and limitations of video game development and the video game market in the Philippines is also discussed to show how the dominance of Western video game industry, in terms of the dominance of outsource work for Filipino video game developers and the dominance of non-Filipino video games played by Filipino players, has hindered the development of original Filipino video games. Using four Filipino video games as primary texts discussed in class, students were exposed to Filipinomade video games, and shown how these games use Filipino history, culture, and politics as source material for their narrative and design. Issues of how video games can be used to selfexoticization, and the use of propaganda is discussed, and also how video games can be used to confront and reimagine Filipinoness. The paper ends with a discussion of a student-made game titled Alibatas, a game that aims to teach baybayin, a neglected native writing system in the Philippines as a demonstration of how students can make a Filipino video game. The paper then shows the importance of student-made games, and the role that the academe plays in the critical understanding of Filipino video games, and in defining Filipino culture and identity.


SISFORMA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Ferdian Aditya Pratama ◽  
Riana Magdalena ◽  
Stefani Prima Dias ◽  
Davin Jeremiah Alamsyah

The concept of playing and learning in the classroom has begun to change from playing using physical toys to playing using a computer such as games. The use of serious games as a learning media can help the improvement of dopamine hormones in human body, which is responsible for bringing pleasure and joy to our mind. When that hormone is triggered, the children will be easier to understand the information provided through the game. TKK Mitra has several problems, such as (1) The old computer with a low spec that they had, so it would be difficult for them to download or to install the new game. (2) The lack of games that can be used for teaching the children, so they often get bored quickly. The purpose of this research is to design an educational PC game. The result of this research is an education game for color and object recognition in English for early childhood education.


Organization ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Peticca-Harris ◽  
Johanna Weststar ◽  
Steve McKenna

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme.


Author(s):  
Elena Bertozzi ◽  
Leonard R. Krilov ◽  
Dilys Walker

This paper discusses the creation of two serious games developed by the Engender Games Group with the intention of meeting specific outcomes in the healthcare field. The processes and pitfalls of developing games of this kind are outlined with the intention of demonstrating how game developers and health care professionals can collaborate to produce compelling, fun games that meet specific goals. The Atendiendo el Parto en Casa (Home Birth), game is a collaboration with Drs. Dilys Walker and Carrie Rouse at the University of Washington Medical School to educate traditional midwives working in rural Mexico. The Flu Busters! game is a collaboration with a group of pediatric specialists at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island led by Dr. Leonard Krilov which explains how the flu vaccine works and encourages children to get vaccinated.


Author(s):  
Lee Sherlock

This chapter examines the construction of serious game genre frameworks from a rhetorical perspective. The author argues that to understand the forms of persuasion, learning, and social action that serious games facilitate, perspectives on genre must be developed and applied that situate serious gaming activity within larger systems of discourse, meaning-making, and text circulation. The current disconnect between popular understandings of serious game genres and those expressed by serious game developers represents one instance where rhetorical genre studies can be applied to generate knowledge about the “genre work” that serious games perform. Advocating a notion of genre that seeks to identify forms of social action and the persuasive possibility spaces of gaming, the author concludes by synthesizing digital game-based formulations of genre with perspectives from rhetorical theory to suggest implications for serious game research and design.


Author(s):  
Pollyana Notargiacomo Mustaro ◽  
Raphael Leal Mendonça

Serious games, electronic games whose purpose is work educational elements, often do not reach this goal because by being included the content and teaching strategies, the fun’s dimension and motivation to interact are reduced. In this sense, this chapter presents a proposal for the use of immersion, narrative, and replayability as devices to make serious games more attractive to the student in general. These three elements are explored theoretically and then analyzed and aligned with proposals for instructional design and learning theories. As a result, a development proposal for Serious Game Development Document (SGDD) and a rubric for evaluation of use are presented. With this, it is expected to contribute and assist not only with development, but also with in the analysis of serious games.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (24) ◽  
pp. 8803
Author(s):  
Luis Salvador-Ullauri ◽  
Patricia Acosta-Vargas ◽  
Mario Gonzalez ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora

Nowadays, serious games have become a beneficial resource in the learning process; they are part of our culture and promote social inclusion. Designing accessible serious games is a complete challenge, even more for non-experts. Most existing serious games do not meet accessibility standards because of a lack of methods that include standards and help create more accessible serious games. For this reason, our research presents a heuristic method with three modifications to Giorgio Brajnik’s barrier walkthrough method and based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1). We defined 28 barriers for the users with low vision and the related impact and persistence variables by defining severity ranges to evaluate accessibility. This method allows measuring the accessibility of web-based serious games; the method proposed in this article can be a good help for non-experts. As a case study, this heuristic method was applied to 40 web-based serious games. The evaluators concluded that serious games should apply WCAG 2.1 to achieve an adequate and inclusive accessibility level. However, this study has limitations; the heuristic method depends on the evaluators’ experience. This work can contribute to studies related to accessibility heuristics in serious games; it can also help construct a software tool that applies WCAG 2.1 and helps experts and non-experts evaluate accessibility in serious games.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9584
Author(s):  
Angel Jaramillo-Alcázar ◽  
Paz Cortez-Silva ◽  
Marco Galarza-Castillo ◽  
Sergio Luján-Mora

Video games that are used as teaching tools are called serious games. However, there is an important factor that is not usually considered in the design of serious games— the inclusion of people with disabilities. Inclusion can be reached only if accessibility takes on an important role for all. On the other hand, new trends have resulted in different smart devices being used in classrooms. These devices also allow for applications, such as serious games, to be used to support people’s learning process. Despite this, these applications are generally not multi-platform and do not usually consider accessibility features for people with disabilities. This paper proposes a method to develop accessible online serious games that consider people with disabilities as potential users. The method is applied in the case study of an online serious game that teaches about the architecture of a computer in a fun and entertaining way. The method also presents and describes several guidelines to improve online serious game accessibility for people with disabilities. Finally, tests are conducted with some users to gather information about the online serious game and the accessibility features included. This study has important implications for the development of learning tools that consider people with disabilities.


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