TEN HEURISTICS TO EVALUATE THE USER EXPERIENCE OF SERIOUS GAMES

Year 2016, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 209 - 225, 01.12.2016

L. Fitchat D. B. Jordaan

Abstract

The potential of serious games to promote effective learning has been established
in the literature. However, designing effective serious games that strike a balance
between being entertaining and at the same time instructional, remains elusive.
This research turns to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) to
investigate the aspects that are most influential to the player’s experiences with
serious games. From this, HCI principles to evaluate the user experience of
serious games are identified and described. User experience (UX) refers to how
individuals perceive and respond to using interactive systems such as serious
games. Since UX is regarded as subjective in nature, this study was conducted
using interpretative phenomenological analysis, which focuses on idiographic
inquiry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five participants after
they were given time to play a serious game. The serious game, titled StoryTimes,
aims to teach the user the multiplication tables by employing memory association
techniques in a fun and innovative way. StoryTimes was developed as part of this
research to investigate how HCI principles are applied during the development
cycle of a serious game. The data from the interviews were analysed qualitatively
to determine which aspects of the serious game were regarded as the most
important from the participants’ point of view. The findings indicate that players
of serious games prefer mobile gaming platforms and have certain expectations
regarding how subject content is integrated into video games. It also reveals the
design challenges associated with the attention spans and very diverse natures of individual players. These aspects were recast in the form of ten heuristics that could be applied when evaluating the UX of serious games. Designers of serious games can use these heuristics during the development process to create a learning environment that is both effective and fun

Keywords

Serious Games, Human-Computer Interaction, user experience

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