Browsing by Author "Gerling, K. M."
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Item Metadata only Full-Body Motion-Based Game Interaction for Older Adults(ACM, 2012) Gerling, K. M.; Livingston, I. J.; Nacke, L. E.; Mandryk, R. L.Older adults in nursing homes often lead sedentary lifestyles, which reduces their life expectancy. Full-body motion-control games provide an opportunity for these adults to remain active and engaged; these games are not designed with age-related impairments in mind, which prevents the games from being leveraged to increase the activity levels of older adults. In this paper, we present two studies aimed at developing game design guidelines for full-body motion controls for older adults experiencing age-related changes and impairments. Our studies also demonstrate how full-body motion-control games can accommodate a variety of user abilities, have a positive effect on mood and, by extension, the emotional well-being of older adults. Based on our studies, we present seven guidelines for the design of full-body interaction in games. The guidelines are designed to foster safe physical activity among older adults, thereby increasing their quality of life.Item Metadata only Involving Users and Experts in Motion-Based Game Design for Older Adults(2013) Gerling, K. M.; Smeddinck, J. D.Motion-based video games have a variety of positive effects on older adults, but their design remains challenging. Traditional game design often turns towards a user-centered design process, and game design experts are readily available. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of this approach in motion-based game design for older adults. We identify core challenges and show how users and experts can be involved in the design process to help game developers create safe, accessible and enjoyable motion-based games for older adults.Item Metadata only KINECTWheels: Wheelchair-Accessible Motion-Based Game Interaction(ACM, 2013) Gerling, K. M.; Kalyn, M.; Mandryk, R. L.The increasing popularity of full-body motion-based video games creates new challenges for game accessibility research. Many games strongly focus on able-bodied persons and require players to move around freely. To address this problem, we introduce KINECTWheels, a toolkit that facilitates the integration of wheelchair-based game input. Our library can help game designers to integrate wheelchair input at the development stage, and it can be configured to trigger keystroke events to make off-the-shelf PC games wheelchair-accessible.Item Metadata only Visual Complexity, Player Experience, Performance and Physical Exertion in Motion-Based Games for Older Adults(ACM, 2013) Smeddinck, J. D.; Gerling, K. M.; Tiemkeo, S.Motion-based video games can have a variety of benefits for the players and are increasingly applied in physical therapy, rehabilitation and prevention for older adults. However, little is known about how this audience experiences playing such games, how the player experience affects the way older adults interact with motion-based games, and how this can relate to therapy goals. In our work, we decompose the player experience of older adults engaging with motion-based games, focusing on the effects of manipulations of the game representation through the visual channel (visual complexity), since it is the primary interaction modality of most games and since vision impairments are common amongst older adults. We examine the effects of different levels of visual complexity on player experience, performance, and exertion in a study with fifteen participants. Our results show that visual complexity affects the way games are perceived in two ways: First, while older adults do have preferences in terms of visual complexity of video games, notable effects were only measurable following drastic variations. Second, perceived exertion shifts depending on the degree of visual complexity. These findings can help inform the design of motion-based games for therapy and rehabilitation for older adults.