Evaluating an E-Learning Application to Protect Vulnerable Users From Cyberbullying

This research project evaluates Let's Be Safe, an e-learning application. This application aims to educate young adults with intellectual disability about cyberbullying—an issue prevalent among this population—and cybersafety. Twenty-two individuals with mild to moderate intellectual disability took part in the research. The study employed a mixed-methods design including observational and inquiry methods of usability evaluation as well as focus groups. The evaluation investigated the relationships between perceived aesthetics, emotional response, and usability for the application. The focus group gathered information from the participants regarding their knowledge and experience of cyberbullying and cybersafety. The analyses found no significant relationships between aesthetics, emotional response, and usability for this user group. However, the research gathered data, which will contribute to the development of Let's Be Safe. The findings of the focus group revealed that cyberbullying is an issue among this population.

An ARM Framework for F2P Mobile Games

This chapter presents an ARM (acquisition, retention, and monetization) framework for F2P (free-to-play) mobile games to be used as to support game design practice and research. ARM strategies are dispersed throughout various sources such as websites, papers, and books, hampering the work of researchers and practitioners in this field. The aim of this framework is to list and organize these strategies into a single source. A literature research about ARM strategies in F2P mobile games was conducted to identify and select elements. Based on surveys with game development professionals, some of these elements were polished, merged, or removed. Finally, these elements were organized into a single framework, consisting of 3 main categories (acquisition, retention, and monetization), 8 subcategories, and 59 specific elements.

Deus ex Machina

Churches have a long tradition using technology to grow their audience and to connect worshippers. Technologies used in Christian service are not even perceived as such: consider architecture, the organ, and light. Yet, faith-based organizations have always been critical of new technologies. The authors used design science research methodologies to develop an artifact of the Eucharist of a Catholic service. “Instant Church” is an interactive machine that guides visitors through the service and creates an individualized wafer with a laser-engraved QR-code that points to a random Tweet with a hate message that invites a moment of thought. Over 700 visitors saw that exhibit. A qualitative evaluation showed a high positive acceptance by users under40 while older visitors had a negative perspective. The artifact proved to be a highly suitable tool to invite a critical discourse and at the same time serves as a learning tool about the service. Interactive intelligent solutions reach the generation of digital natives and enable the discourse on the relationship between technology and faith.

The Convergence Between Challenge-Based Learning and Game Design Thinking Methodologies

The process of game development is constantly evolving in order to meet the different demands of players as well as the need to adapt to the employment of new technologies and trends in the gaming market. The game design thinking methodology that adds quality to the game development once is focused on the game design and development based on design thinking, an interactive design process focused on collaboration between developers and users to propose user-centered solutions. The challenge-based learning methodology presents to the learners (and future professionals) a challenge scenario asking them to think about a number of possible solutions using a variety of interactive tools. This chapter proposes to combine both game design thinking and challenge-based learning methodologies into the process of game development in order to assist the game learners and professionals to be able to integrate different aspects necessary to the proposal of a game, considering its multidisciplinary nature and understanding the human needs involved.

Impact of Evaluating the Usability of Assisted Technology Oriented by Protocol

The main objective of this research is to provide a procedure set, oriented by a clear and rigorous protocol that allows the replication of results regarding the accessibility claims of products and systems available for the blind community, thus validating their robustness. The goal during the experiment was to compare user preferences and effectiveness when performing tasks with the voice synthesizers JAWS and DOSVOX and a braille keyboard. The adopted evaluation protocol includes the following methods: usability testing, focus group, and user satisfaction survey. The study developed with the proposed protocol investigates assistive technology adequacy to target users. The tasks performed by 30 users were categorized as activities of entertainment, learning, and social inclusion. It is considered that the main contribution of this chapter is to provide the protocol and methodology, adapted for use in evaluations of accessibility products and devices.

Instrumental Music Design

The authors describe the importance of music design for background instrumental music and the effect on task performance. Three instrumental music conditions that differ in tempo, articulation, mode, and musical meter were tested using a complex task scenario. The task was performed using a complicated web-interface that required users to focus their attention and perform several specific interactions for successfully finishing the task. All the interactions with the interface were recorded. Moreover, a mixed assessment of the emotional state, perceived task performance, and music perception was asked to participants upon task completion. Experimental results revealed that music design has complex effects on task performance and emotion. Also, the results revealed important trends that can help design music environments to control frustration when confronted to complex and cognitively demanding tasks.

Applied Alternative Tools and Methods in the Replacement of the Game Design Document

This chapter proposes and experiments alternatives to replace or optimize the use of the game design document (GDD). The creation and development of a game is accomplished by relying on the GDD, which contains all the information, such as the script, mechanics, and relevant details, so the team can use as a guide. There is no exact formula for creating a GDD, and several formats are proposed and used nowadays. Information misinterpreted or misunderstood at different levels of responsibility can create irreparable problems after the start of production. This chapter proposes the use of analog prototyping associated with benchmarking techniques and agile development as efficient alternatives to GDD, which are tested in the development of the game Forsaken Dungeons, created by one of the authors.

Explanations in Artificial Intelligence Decision Making

The opacity of AI systems' decision making has led to calls to modify these systems so they can provide explanations for their decisions. This chapter contains a discussion of what these explanations should address and what their nature should be to meet the concerns that have been raised and to prove satisfactory to users. More specifically, the chapter briefly reviews the typical forms of AI decision-making that are currently used to make real-world decisions affecting people's lives. Based on concerns about AI decision making expressed in the literature and the media, the chapter follows with principles that the systems should respect and corresponding requirements for explanations to respect those principles. A mapping between those explanation requirements and the types of explanations generated by AI decision making systems reveals the strengths and shortcomings of the explanations generated by those systems.

Surveying Games With a Combined Model of Immersion and Flow

Detecting flow in games is key for successful adaptation processes. Until now, the method of choice to measure flow in games is the usage of questionnaires, such as flow short scale or game experience questionnaire. Because of the shortcomings of these methods, the theoretical model of flow is enhanced by the concept of immersion to propose a unified flow/immersion model. In combination with this more fine-grained model of immersion, player experience may be measured in a more detailed fashion. The enhancement of the theoretical model and the altered experiment procedure are presented. In conclusion, a perspective towards performing the experiment and future data recordings is given.

Lesion Boundary Segmentation With Artifacts Removal and Melanoma Detection in Skin Lesion Images

Melanoma is a severe form of skin cancer characterized by the rapid multiplication of pigment-producing cells. A problem on analysis of these images is interesting because of the existence of artifacts that produces noise such as hair, veins, water residue, illuminations, and light reflections. An important step in the diagnosis of melanoma is the removal and reduction of these artifacts that can inhibit the examination to accurately segment the skin lesion from the surrounding skin area. A simple method for artifacts removal for extracting skin lesion is implemented based on image enhancement and morphological operators. This is used for training together with some augmentation techniques on images for melanoma detection. The experimental results show that artifact removal and lesion segmentation in skin lesion images performed a true detection rate of 95.37% for melanoma skin lesion segmentation, and as high as 92.5% accuracy for melanoma detection using both GoogLeNet and Resnet50.