AR-based serious game framework for post-stroke rehabilitation

Stroke is considered one of the main causes of death around the world. Survivors often suffer different kinds of disabilities in terms of their cognitive and motor capabilities, and are therefore unable to perform their day-to-day activities. To regain some of their cognitive as well as motor abilities, they require rehabilitation. To this end, we present a serious game framework based on augmented reality technology that may motivate the patients’ involvement in the rehabilitation exercise. Additionally, we analyze the requirements for such a framework and describe the concept and implementation of the proposed approach. Furthermore, we designed a wireless vibrotactile output device that is attached to a tangible object. The tangible object that is connected to the framework can give haptic as well as audio-visual feedback to the patient in a more motivating and entertaining environment for rehabilitation exercises. The suitability and utility of the proposed framework was evaluated with real stroke patients and compared against the performance of a healthy control group, thus facilitating occupational therapists in assessing a patient’s progress. Our evaluations show that the serious games with vibrotactile feedback are well accepted by patients.     

Analyzing repetitive action in game based on sequence pattern matching

As games become more popular, procedures which can support the analysis and understanding of players’ behaviors are necessary for success of commercial games. This paper presents a log-based usability evaluation system to analyze user behavior in a gaming environment. We explore the potential of input log data for automated usability evaluation and visualization of player behavior in a game. We traced the keyboard input value and mouse movement of users using a sequence data mining technique in a gaming environment. And we also constructed 3D body meshes for the behavior analysis using Kinect interface. We visualized the data obtained by tracing and automatically searched repetitive patterns in the game and analyzed them. The result obtained from the analysis can be used for user interface optimization, fun evaluation, and the bot-detection field.     

网络游戏流特征分析与识别

网络游戏在全球范围内迅速发展,其用户不断增加,因此游戏数据流的识别有着重要的现实意义。利用Wireshark,抓取不同类型的网络游戏流数据,包括大型多人在线角色扮演类、第一人称射击类、实时策略类游戏和卡牌类等游戏,对游戏流识别进行研究。采用协议过滤和IP过滤的方法对数据进行预处理,分别对下行和上行数据进行大量的统计特征分析,发现包大小信息熵、下上行包数目之比和PPS（Packets Per Second）等特征适用于游戏流分类。分类实验结果表明,利用IP过滤和提取出的特征组合可以有效地提高识别准确率。     

Using peer tutoring in evaluating the usability of a physically interactive computer game with children

This paper presents a novel approach to usability evaluation with children called peer tutoring. Peer tutoring means that children teach other children to use the software that is evaluated. The basic philosophy behind this is to view software as a part of child's play, so that the teaching process is analogous to explaining the rules of a game such as hide and seek. If the software is easy to teach and learn, it is more likely that the amount of users increases in a social setting such as a school. The peer tutoring approach provides information about teachability and learnability of software and it also promotes communication in the test situation, compared to a test person communicating with an adult instructor. The approach has been applied to the development of a perceptually interactive user interface in QuiQui's Giant Bounce, a physically and vocally interactive computer game for 4–9 year old children. The results and experiences of using peer tutoring are promising and it has proved to be effective in detecting usability flaws and in improving the design of the game.     

Elderly user experience to improve a Kinect-based game playability

When it comes to using computers, older people experience many barriers, which are a considerable hurdle to overcome in order to enable them to accept technological aids. Thus, computer interface design and development must support elderly end users by avoiding many usability issues which lead to negative impacts on them. This paper describes the combination of a computer game design for the elderly and its implementation with user experience considerations embedded in the process. In this way, a positive gaming experience is provided to the end user. This game uses the Kinect device, enabling users to interact intuitively with the computer without any intermediary controller, and its main purpose is to promote at the same time cognitive and physical activities for healthy living. Feedback was taken from physiotherapists’ written observations and user experience questionnaires, which allowed the game to be adapted to their needs, obtaining 86.25% satisfaction. The effectiveness of this study opens the door to new developments in ICT that not only improve quality of life but also reduce the existing digital divide for the elderly.     

Outcomes for design and learning when teenagers with autism codesign a serious game: A pilot study

Digital educational games research tends to lack ecological validity by not adequately taking into account the views and perspectives of children and young people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This paper is a pilot study that explores and analyses an academic‐based educational game that was co‐designed with and for young people with ASD. The serious game aims to help the players learn Geography‐specific knowledge and integrates several strategic features so that users can collaborate together against the computer or compete against each other. The educational game was evaluated over 5 sessions by 3 peer teams from 2 different special educational institutions, involving a total of 6 students with ASD. The participants were positive about their enjoyment, motivation, and social engagement. The results showed that the players' level of competitiveness not only influenced the experience within the game but also the interaction within the peer teams. The game mechanisms did help the participants with ASD increase their knowledge in Geography content. The main conclusion is that there are considerable benefits of including children with ASD in the design process and future research should explore more fully on how their involvement can enhance curriculum‐based learning as well as social engagement within the classroom.     

Designing universal access: web-applications for the elderly and disabled

Throughout a person’s life they are likely to experience some degree of impairment. What must be ensured is that these individuals can benefit from the opportunities afforded by technology in the same way as those who are able bodied. With the Internet becoming an increasingly popular medium for organizations to deliver information and services to the public many of these technological benefits are provided through web applications. However, due to possible visual, physical or cognitive impairments, older users and those with disabilities are more likely to experience difficulties. This paper addresses issues relating to usability of web applications for elderly and disabled users and investigates ways in which it can be improved, and whether doing so will affect usability for younger and more able users. Results from experiments undertaken indicated that it was possible to develop a web application for elderly and disabled users without degrading usability for other users.     

Improving accessibility of mobile devices with EasyWrite

This paper describes the development process of EasyWrite, a text-entry method for mobile devices that allows people with hand coordination problems to use small computer devices such as smartphones, tablet PCs, or other touchscreen machines. This text-entry method aims at improving typing accuracy and reducing frustration of people affected by this motor disability when using small devices. EasyWrite was developed following an iterative and user-centred process. Starting from requirements elicited from observing potential users with mild and moderate motor disabilities and information provided by a literature review, a low-fidelity prototype was built and evaluated. This early prototype was refined throughout several design and evaluation iterations. Its current state is a functional prototype that works on Android phones. The functional prototype usability was evaluated through user tests. The result of this process is a small virtual keyboard for mobile devices that has less and bigger keys as compared to other onscreen keyboards. The concept of EasyWrite is largely based on the notion of scanning group systems, but it allows users to navigate directly through groups and subgroups of characters by tapping on directional keys in order to find the desired character rather than waiting for a visual cursor to advance through the options, one at a time, at a specific time rate. Though at its current stage the method proposed by EasyWrite shows some limitations, it appears to be appropriate for users with moderate motor disabilities. For this group of people, user test results indicate that EasyWrite could be a more adequate text-entry method than the one provided by standard keyboards, both physical and onscreen, commonly found in mobile devices.     

协作式云资源博弈分配

针对用户对云资源的异构性需求和竞争问题,提出了一种协作式资源分配博弈策略。建立了资源分配的协作式博弈模型,定义了协作博弈的用户效用函数和评估函数,证明了在该效用函数下协作博弈存在唯一Nash均衡,并讨论了用户组建联盟对协作特征函数和整体效用的影响。实验结果表明,在该协作博弈策略下,个体用户通过组建联盟集体出价的方式,能够为联盟用户带来更大效用,以收敛方式实现Pareto改进。     

Universal usability as a stimulus to advanced interface design

The desire to make computing available to broader populations has historically been a motivation for research and innovation that led to new breakthroughs in usability. Menus, graphical user interfaces and the World Wide Web are examples of innovative technological solutions that have arisen out of the challenge of bringing larger and more diverse groups of users into the world of computing. Universal usability is the latest such challenge: In order to build systems that are universally usable, designers must account for technology variety, user diversity and gaps in user knowledge. These issues are particularly challenging and important in the context of increasing the usability of the World Wide Web. To raise awareness, web designers are urged to provide universal usability statements that offer users information about the usability of their sites. These statements can inform users and thereby reduce frustration and confusion. Further steps toward universal usability might be achieved through research aimed at developing tools that would encourage or promote usability. The paper closes with five proposals for future research.     

A therapy-driven gamification framework for hand rehabilitation

Rehabilitative therapy is usually very expensive and confined to specialized rehabilitation centers or hospitals, leading to slower recovery times for corresponding patients. Therefore, there is a high demand for the development of technology-based personalized solutions to guide and encourage patients towards performing online rehabilitation program that can help them live independently at home. This paper introduces an innovative e-health framework that develops adaptive serious games for people with hand disabilities. The aim of this work is to provide a patient-adaptive environment for the gamification of hand therapies in order to facilitate and encourage rehabilitation issues. Theoretical foundations (i.e., therapy and patient models) and algorithms to match therapy-based hand gestures to navigational movements in 3D space within the serious game environment have been developed. A novel game generation module is introduced, which translates those movements into a 3D therapy-driven route on a real-world map and with different levels of difficulty based on the patient profile and capabilities. In order to enrich the user navigation experience, a 3D spatio-temporal validation region is also generated, which tracks and adjusts the patient movements throughout the session. The gaming environment also creates and adds semantics to different types of attractive and repellent objects in space depending on the difficulty level of the game. Relevant benchmarks to assess the patient interaction with the environment along with a usability and performance testing of our framework are introduced to ensure quantitative as well as qualitative improvements. Trial tests in one disability center were conducted with a total number of five subjects, having hand motor controls problems, who used our gamified physiotherapy solution to help us in measuring the usability and users’ satisfaction levels. The obtained results and feedback from therapists and patients are very encouraging.     

Performance and touch characteristics of disabled and non-disabled participants during a reciprocal tapping task using touch screen technology

Touch screens are becoming more prevalent in everyday environments. Therefore, it is important that this technology is accessible to those with varying disabilities. The objective of the current study was to evaluate performance and touch characteristics (forces, impulses, and dwell times) of individuals with and without a movement disorder during a reciprocal tapping touch screen task. Thirty-seven participants with a motor control disability and 15 non-disabled participants participated. Outcome measures include number of correct taps, dwell time, exerted force, and impulse. Results indicate non-disabled participants had 1.8 more taps than participants with fine motor control disabilities and 2.8 times more than those with gross motor impairments (p<0.05). Additionally, people with gross motor control disabilities demonstrated longer dwell times and greater impulses (p<0.05). The average force used to activate the buttons was 6.2 N, although the button activation force was 0.98 N. Differences in reciprocal tapping and touch characteristics exist between those with and without motor control disabilities. Understanding how people (including those with disabilities) interact with touch screens may allow designers and engineers to ultimately improve usability of touch screen technology.     

Gaming on the move: urban experience as a new paradigm for mobile pervasive game design

In this paper, we describe a pervasive treasure hunting game: “Team exploration” based on the Transhumance mobile ad-hoc network platform. The testers of this game came up with innovative suggestions that combined the technical features of the platform with their urban experience. They pointed to specific aspects of urban mobility that influence pervasive game design and contribute to the user’s pleasure. These tests show that the notion of space (geometrical organization) is not enough to characterize and organize pervasive games and that four main anthropological features have to be taken into consideration: the concrete city (physical organization), the imaginary city (narratives), the functional city (services) and the city events. The multilayered urban experience is also defined by our schedules (including repetitive or exceptional events) and by our assessment of other users (the distance or proximity as they are felt). These diverse aspects and qualifications of urban experience provide an interesting framework for the understanding of pervasive game experimentations, as well as point to new directions in pervasive game design. Our paper advocates that further anthropological observations are part of the pervasive game design methodology.     

Key factors that influence the UX of a dual-player game for the cognitive stimulation and motor rehabilitation of older adults

Universal Access in the Information Society - In this work, the results of usability and user experience (UX) evaluation of a serious video game for the cognitive stimulation and motor...     

A Review of: “A Library Management Game” (University of Lancaster Library Occasional Papers,no. 7.) By P. BROPHY,M. K. BUCKLAND,G. FORD,A. HINDLE and A. G. MACKENZIE.(University of Lancaster, 1972.) [Pp. 90.] £1.00.

Game controllers are emerging as a preferred choice for the manual control of unmanned vehicles, but an understanding of their usability characteristics has yet to emerge. We compared the usability of an Xbox 360 game controller in a dual task situation using MATB II to the traditional joystick and keyboard interface in two experiments. In the first experiment, performance with the game controller was associated with fewer tracking errors. In a second experiment, we trained users on the devices, and found that even after training the game controller was still associated with fewer tracking errors as well as higher usability and lower workload ratings. These results are consistent with the idea that game controllers are highly usable input devices and do not require high mental workload to operate, thus making them suitable for complex control tasks.     

Participatory evaluation of an educational game for social skills acquisition

This paper reports a study conducted to formally evaluate a social problem-solving skills game during the start of the development to ensure that the desired game attributes were successfully embodied in the final game. Two methods, heuristic evaluation and participatory design, were adopted to assess whether the features of the game pose playability issues to the prospective young users and to translate the participants' contributions into game design directions. The participants playtested and evaluated the game based on the Pedagogical Playability Heuristics, which are different from existing heuristics developed for commercial games, as priority was placed on instructional design principles and the concept of playability. Using storyboarding, they built low-fidelity prototypes of the game. Suitable children's design and feedback on the games attributes that would bring about stimulation, connecting instructions to goals, appropriate challenge and influencing goal achievement were integrated into the game design. As a consequence of the study, steps were taken to improve the game as an interactive system to achieve the instructional goals and at the same time foster enjoyment among the users.     

Knowledge discovery of game design features by mining user-generated feedback

The term “Gamification” is an emerging paradigm that aims to employ game mechanics and game thinking to change behavior. Gamification offers several effective ways to motivate users into action such as challenges, levels and rewards. However, an open research problem is discovering the set of gamification features that consistently result in a higher probability of success for a given task, game or application. The objective of this paper is to bridge this knowledge gap by quantifying the gamification features that are consistently found in successful applications. Knowledge gained from this work will inform designers about the gamification features that lead to higher chances of an application's success, and the gamification features that do not significantly impact the success of an application. The case study presented in this work leverages demographic heterogeneity and scale of applications existing within mobile platforms to evaluate the impact of gamification features on the success or failure of those applications. The successful game design features identified have the potential to be embedded into interactive gamification platforms across various fields such as healthcare, education, military and marketing, in order to maintain or enhance user engagement.     

基于 Spark 平台的网络游戏用户流失预测方法

随着移动互联网的广泛普及,国内网络游戏市场日趋饱和,游戏公司获得新用户的成本不断增加,如何预防存量用户的流失已经成为市场营销的重心。提出了一种基于Spark平台的网络游戏用户流失预测方法,基于一个真实游戏日志数据对用户进行了流失预测。首先,从日志数据中抽取和计算了用户特征;随后,按权重选取了一组重要特征;最后,以特征为输入、流失与否为输出进行了二分类建模。综合比较了随机森林、支持向量机、多层感知机、梯度提升决策树和逻辑回归等6种常见分类算法。实验结果表明,随机森林算法表现最优,模型预测精度达到91%。     

A genetic algorithm for the Zen Puzzle Garden game

In this paper we present a novel genetic algorithm (GA) solution to a simple yet challenging commercial puzzle game known as Zen Puzzle Garden (ZPG). We describe the game in detail, before presenting a suitable encoding scheme and fitness function for candidate solutions. By constructing a simulator for the game, we compare the performance of the GA with that of the A* algorithm. We show that the GA is competitive with informed search in terms of solution quality, and significantly out-performs it in terms of computational resource requirements. By highlighting relevant features of the game we hope to stimulate further work on its study, and we conclude by presenting several possible areas for future research.     

Accessible privacy and security: a universally usable human-interaction proof tool

Despite growing interest in designing usable systems for managing privacy and security, recent efforts have generally failed to address the needs of users with disabilities. As security and privacy tools often rely upon subtle visual cues or other potentially inaccessible indicators, users with perceptual limitations might find such tools particularly challenging. To understand the needs of an important group of users with disabilities, a focus group was conducted with blind users to determine their perceptions of security-related challenges. Human-interaction proof (HIP) tools, commonly known as CAPTCHAs, are used by web pages to defeat robots and were identified in the focus group as a major concern. Therefore, a usability test was conducted to see how well blind users were able to use audio equivalents of these graphical tools. Finally, an accessible HIP tool was developed which combines audio and matching images, supporting both visual and audio output. Encouraging results from a small usability evaluation of the prototype with five sighted users and five blind users show that this new form of HIP is preferred by both blind and visual users to previous forms of text-based HIPs. Future directions for research are also discussed.