Creating wheelchair-controlled video games: Challenges and opportunities when involving young people with mobility impairments and game design experts

Abstract

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.

Designing Movement-based Play With Young People Using Powered Wheelchairs

“…A number of projects have applied participatory design in the development of games [18], with some of those exploring participatory design with players with special needs, for example, young people with learning disabilities [1], and children with autism [3]; research by Gerling et al [13] that compares involving young people using wheelchairs and game design experts shows that both groups produced comparable game concepts, but that young people using wheelchairs had a more realistic perspective on their personal situation. While offering many benefits, a participatory approach also creates challenges, some of which are uniquely associated with game development.…”

Exploring Casual Exergames with Kids Using Wheelchairs

“…Games included in our research were developed following two different approaches [2]. For the first game, Skiing Mountain, focus groups were conducted with young people with complex needs to establish a co-design process and identify suitable game themes along with basic game mechanics.…”

“…We selected two games from previous game development projects [2] that looked into wheelchair-controlled movement-based games, Skiing Mountain a wheelchair-controlled skiing game and Collector of Light, a fantasy-themed infinite runner in which wheelchair movement controls an elk. Both games fit the definition of casual exergames in the sense that they provide easily accessible gameplay that could be broken up into short chunks.…”

Activities to Support Sustainable Inclusive Game Design Processes

“…This gap between research and industry is not unique to this particular area but is common in game research in general [2,3]. There is also a lack of understanding with regards to the everyday life situation of people with special needs when designing for accessibility, as well as there is little consideration for the "real world situation" of the game developers [1,4].…”