Young people using powered wheelchairs have limited access to engaging leisure activities. We address this issue through a two-stage project; 1) the participatory development of a set of wheelchair-controlled, movementbased games (with 9 participants at a school that provides education for young people who have special needs) and 2) three case studies (4 participants) exploring player perspectives on a set of three wheelchair-controlled casual games. Our results show that movement-based playful experiences are engaging for young people using powered wheelchairs. However, the participatory design process and case studies also reveal challenges for game accessibility regarding the integration of movement in games, diversity of abilities among young people using powered wheelchairs, and the representation of disability in games. In our paper, we explore how to address those challenges in the development of accessible, empowering movementbased games, which is crucial to the wider participation of young people using powered wheelchairs in play.

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Although participatory design (PD) is currently the most acceptable and respectful process we have for designing technology, recent discussions suggest that there may be two barriers to the successful application of PD to the design of digital games: First, the involvement of audiences with special needs can introduce new practical and ethical challenges to the design process. Second, the use of non-experts in game design roles has been criticised in that participants lack skills necessary to create games of appropriate quality. To explore how domain knowledge and user involvement influence game design, we present results from two projects that addressed the creation of movement-based wheelchair-controlled video games from different perspectives. The first project was carried out together with a local school that provides education for young people with special needs, where we invited students who use wheelchairs to take part in design sessions. The second project involved university students on a game development course, who do not use wheelchairs, taking on the role of expert designers. They were asked to design concepts for wheelchair-controlled games as part of a final-year course on game design. Our results show that concepts developed by both groups were generally suitable examples of wheelchair-controlled motion-based video games, but we observed differences regarding level of detail of game concepts, and ideas of disability. Additionally, our results show that the design exercise exposed vulnerabilities in both groups, outlining that the risk of practical and emotional vulnerability needs to be considered when working with the target audience as well as expert designers. Highlights  First participatory study designing games for young people using wheelchairs.  Reflection on relative contribution of game design expertise and experience.  Explores representation of mobility disability by participants in design process.  Reflection on how vulnerability of participants exposed through design process.

Figure 1. Columns show low, medium, and high levels of texture-based biofeedback. Rows show customizations of the same effect for two different games: top) Static Sprite (cracks) over Portal 2, bottom) Static Sprite (mud) over Nail'd. ABSTRACTBiofeedback games help people maintain specific mental or physical states and are useful to help children with cognitive impairments learn to self-regulate their brain function. However, biofeedback games are expensive and difficult to create and are not sufficiently appealing to hold a child's interest over the long term needed for effective biofeedback training. We present a system that turns off-the-shelf computer games into biofeedback games. Our approach uses texture-based graphical overlays that vary in their obfuscation of underlying screen elements based on the sensed physiological state of the child. The textures can be visually customized so that they appear to be integrated with the underlying game. Through a 12-week deployment, with 16 children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, we show that our solution can hold a child's interest over a long term, and balances the competing needs of maintaining the fun of playing, while providing effective biofeedback training.

Few leisure activities are accessible to institutionalized older adults using wheelchairs; in consequence, they experience lower levels of perceived health than able-bodied peers. Video games have been shown to be an engaging leisure activity for older adults. In our work, we address the design of wheelchairaccessible motion-based games. We present KINECT Wheels , a toolkit designed to integrate wheelchair movements into motionbased games, and Cupcake Heaven, a wheelchair-based video game designed for older adults using wheelchairs. Results of two studies show that KINECT Wheels can be applied to make motionbased games wheelchair-accessible, and that wheelchair-based games engage older adults. Through the application of the wheelchair as an enabling technology in play, our work has the potential of encouraging older adults to develop a positive relationship with their wheelchair.