DESIGN OF ADAPTATIVE VIDEOGAME INTERFACES: A PRACTICAL

DESIGN OF ADAPTATIVE VIDEOGAME INTERFACES: A PRACTICAL CASE OF USE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION J.L. González Sánchez, F.L. Gutiérrez, M.J. Cabrera, N. Padilla Zea Videogames and E-Learning Research Lab. (LIVE) – GEDES. Software Engineering Department. University of Granada, C/ Daniel Saucedo Aranda, s/n, E-18007, Granada, Spain. E-Mail:{joseluis, fgutierr, mcabrera, npadilla}@ugr.es

Abstract: The use of new technological and learning methods that help to improve the learning process has produced the inclusion of the video games as active elements in the classrooms. Videogames are ideal learning tools since they provide training skills, promote independence, increase and improve students’ concentration and attention. For special education students with learning difficulties, it is very important to adapt the game to each student’s cognitive level and skills. The present work describes our experience in the design and the use of videogames as new forms to create didactic learning tools to pupils with serious communication problems as autism, dysphasia, ictus or cerebral palsy. Keywords: Design of Videogames, Interactive Systems, User Interfaces, Playability, Special Education.

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Introduction

Humans, through history, have had the ability to administrate their leisure time and have used this factor as cultural development. According to Huizinga [1], the game with the relationship and abilities that humans acquire with the playing process is one of the most important aspects in the human social-cultural evolution. Videogames are the XXIth century games. Videogames [2] enable knowledge to be developed through game contents and increase cognitive abilities through play, but a special child/player has his/her own characteristics that make him/her unique in the world. In these situation it’s a very important factor that didactical videogames must adapt to the player, not only to the context, also to

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interaction techniques, user interface and the didactical contents to develop the most efficacious didactical videogames. In this paper we will describe our proposal to design and develop “player centred videogames” and apply them to a practical context: Special Education. We will describe how to introduce the educational contents into a game structure and how to readapt the videogame interface to make these contents and game dynamics (user interface and user interaction) the most suitable as possible to users/players. The second section of this paper presents various considerations and ideas about special education videogames and how to develop personalized videogames using our game architecture and design techniques. Section 3 presents an example of our ideas, a videogame to learn the vowels. Finally, Section 4 outlines our conclusions and future lines of work.

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Learning by playing, playing to learn: The Design of Adaptative Videogames to the Player

Can we learn playing videogames? This is a question largely debated by specialists in psychology and pedagogy. A videogame could be an unequal pedagogical tool in special education classroom. We should take into account a series of user’s factors in order to get the most effective possible educational process when we are designing an educational videogame: Motivation, Attention, Concentration and Emotion [3, 4, 5, 6]. But, in Special Education field the game must be easy to personalize using the player’s cognitive and physical characteristics because every child is unique in the classroom. Our didactical videogames proposal starts from this main idea: The principal child activity must be playing; the consequence of this action (playing) will be that the child learns the educative contents in an implicit way. It is essential to design and to develop a high quality videogame that the game process stimulates player’s fun and entertainment. We denominate Playability the set of properties to describe the player’s experience with a particular game system, that the principal goal is fun/entertainment to the player in a satisfactory and credible way, playing alone or with other players. Playability reflects the player’s pleasure, experience, sensations and feelings when he/she is playing the videogame. In the Design Process, the first step is creating a complete StoryLine. It must be attractive to the future players who play the game. A good story

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offers a “good connection” between game and player, and helps to catch the player’s attention and consequently to create crucial motivation mechanisms that guarantee the interest of the child to play the game. The history should motivate, excite and thrill the child/player. The following step is the Gameplay Design. It includes all player experiences during the interaction (what the player can do and how to do) with game systems. For example: goals, rules, learning curve, etc. This term is used to describe the overall experience of playing the game excluding the aspects of graphics, sound, and the storyline. In Gameplay Design for the Special Education field it is very important to offer a feedback, focused on the cognitive need, for each action. Player’s error should be corrected without causing sadness or discouragement. It’s recommendable to use a main character or hero, who acts as a mediator/guide in the learning process and game. This learning process should be in rise, based on multi-levels or missions, where the level of difficulty increases gradually. Rewards offer an extra motivationsatisfaction factor, they allow us to create mechanisms that influence the player to self-improvement and advance while playing. In the educational contents design it is crucial to identify the player’s profile, his/her limitations and cognitive capabilities in order to choose the best interaction and user interface mechanisms. We have to structure and adapt the didactic unit objectives to the player’s characteristics and goals of the game. The educational contents should be introduced into the game structure in a hidden way. Our main goal is to develop special education videogames that adapt to the different player profiles. In order to do that we proposes a software evolution framework, based in three-layer structure: the meta-game, the meta-phase and the meta-level. With this meta-structure we model the behaviour and the functionality of our game engine and videogame mechanics: interaction, feedback, etc., independently from the player skills or concepts to be learned. Meta-game layer offers the basic game architecture for training with a specific child. It has two dimensions: The Accessibility dimension, which describes the user interface and the interaction characteristics according to the player’s skill profile and Gameplay dimension, which defines the principal characteristics of the game (goals, multi-levels or missions, rewards, etc). Meta-phase layer involves the educational contents. Finally, the Metalevel layer allows defining educational exercises to train the concept defined in the specific phase. This game definition is saved in binary files

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to use them with the game engine to run a specific game. We can use the game reports to readapt the difficulty of levels dynamically, introducing adaptation/personalization rules (e.g.: frequency of errors and hits) into the game engine. A graphical model of our adaptative/evolutive game architecture is represented in Fig. 1.

Fig.1. Adaptative/Evolutive Videogames Architecture

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A Practical Example: Leoncio and the Lost Vowels Island

As an example of videogames using the ideas that we have presented in this paper, we will introduce our prototype of didactical videogame applied to special education: “Leoncio and the Lost Vowels Island” on Nintendo DS™ [2]. The main educational objective is to learn the vowels across the relationship between the stimuli that the game presents. With the correct stimulus we also introduce erroneous stimuli, in these cases the player should discriminate to obtain the correct result. The game is based on learning method of reading/writing call “SuperLecto-Escritura” [8]. In every moment during the game exists parallelism between phoneme, text and pictograms (vowel pronunciation, vowel writing and vowel graphic representation). The development of the learning of vowels comes through an incremental way, using for it a multilevel system that is grouped in

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different phases. In each level, thanks to the audio device, the child can identify the phoneme of each pictogram touching on it with the stylus or using sweeping technique in each possible option, emphasizing the pictogram and the letter to be stimulated. When the child responds correctly (he/she correlates pictogram with pictogram, later pictogram with vowel and finally with audio), the game shows an appropriate feedback and emphasizes the pictogram and audio with the vowel. If the child fails, the game emphasizes the right answer and encourages the child to re-select a new answer. If the process of selection is right, in the following level of the vowel-phase, the pictogram will decrease its clarity, appearing the letter, which is “hidden” behind the pictogram. At the end the child correlates only the vowel with the pictogram. If the process and assimilation have been right at the end of the phase, the child will have been able to associate a pictogram with the vowel, thanks to a direct training and implicitly, the child acquires the concept of vowel phoneme and completes the triple association pictogram-vowel-phoneme, the basic of reading/writing learning. The game has a life system with a number of hearts assigned to the players, it is another motivation factor. If Leoncio/player fails, he loses health.. An example of a game level is represented in Fig. 2. When you work with videogames in special education they have a crucial factor. Children must have to adapt to the game, and this process makes the learning process more complex. Our videogame include an adaptative process, because the game could personalize to the players/children cognitive/physics requirements for example: the interaction methods, playability or contents presentation using accessibility mechanisms to rapidly adapt the game to several cognitive user profiles.

Fig.2. Example Level in “Leoncio and the Lost Vowels Island”

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4.

Conclusions and Future Works

In this paper we have presented our proposal of player centred videogames for special education, following the idea “Learning by playing, playing to learn”. The learning process must be implicit in the videogame dynamics. We are designing a visual platform to create evolving videogames following a development process in which aspects as user interface, educational contents, multimedia and interaction methods are described in separated and incremental steps. To improve the playability and the game efficacy, we use entertainment devices as Nintendo DS. Finally, we have presented one of our prototypes: “Leoncio and the Lost Vowels Island”. In next months, we will begin an experiment, with a group of children to check the efficacy of our method in “special schools” and elementary schools. We will keep on working in the software evolution framework development and videogame theoretic model that allow us working with adaptation/personalization techniques. Also, we are working in define playability attributes and properties/qualities and use them in the videogame software development to obtain more fun and playable videogames to play alone or in company. Acknowledgments. This study and work is financed by the Consejería de Educación (Education Department) de la Junta de Andalucía (of the Council of Andalusia) as a part of SC@UT Project and the F.P.U Programme of the Ministry of Education and Science, Spain.

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References

[1] Huzinga, J.: Homo Ludens. Ed. Alianza (2000) [2] González Sánchez, J. L.; Cabrera, M.; Gutiérrez, F. L. Diseño de Videojuegos aplicados a la Educación Especial. VIII Congreso Internacional de Interacción PersonaOrdenador (INTERACCION-2007. pp. 35-45 (2007). [3] Malone, T.W. & Lepper, M.R. "Intrinsic Motivation and Instructional Effectiveness in Computer-based Education." In R.E. Snow & M.J.Farr (Eds.) Aptitude, Learning and Instruction. Volume 2: Conative and affective process analyses. pp. 243-286. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N. J (1987) [4] Keller, J.M., & Kopp, T.W. An application of the ARCS model of motivational design. In C.M. Regeluth (eds.), Instructional theories in action: Lessons illustrating selected theories and models. pp. 289-320. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. New York (1987) [5] Csíkszentmihályi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper and Row, . New York (1990) [6] Norman, D. A., Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York (2004) [7] García, C. V; Luciano, M. C., SuperLecto-Escritura. Programa para el aprendizaje de la Lectura y Escritura. Ediciones Némesis, S. L. ISBN: 84-922930-8-X