Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Hybrid Games: Designing Tangible Interfaces for Very Young Children and Children with Special Needs

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
More Playful User Interfaces

Part of the book series: Gaming Media and Social Effects ((GMSE))

Abstract

During recent years, our group has been combining tabletop devices and Tangible Interaction in several experiments in nurseries, schools and special education schools. The development of tangible tabletop games for children involves the integration of physical, virtual and social aspects, thus introducing new challenges to their design, implementation and evaluation processes. This chapter describes the complete process of creating a tangible tabletop game for kindergarten children. The role of the children in every step of the process is discussed, and the different evaluation methods used are shown. The frequent evaluation sessions have provided us with valuable information such as the kind of gestures to be recognized, the benefits of using an additional monitor, or the convenience of using a virtual agent to guide the game. These and other lessons extracted from our experience are presented and discussed in the chapter. An evaluation of the game in a special education environment is also described. Owing to the particular social and cognitive characteristics of these children, conventional well-known usability and user-experience evaluation methodologies are not suitable. Findings from these evaluations are also shared and discussed in order to help in the challenging task of designing tangible tabletop games for all.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alibali, M.W., diRusso, A.A.: The function of gesture in learning to count: more than keeping track. Cogn. Dev. 14, 37–56 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barendregt, W.: Evaluating fun and usability in computer games with children. Ph.D. thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Battocchi, A., Ben-Sasson, A., Esposito, G., Gal, E., Pianesi, F., Tomasini, D., Venuti, P., Weiss, P.L., Zancanaro, M.: Collaborative puzzle game: a tabletop interface for fostering collaborative skills in children with autism spectrum disorders. J. Assistive Technol. 4(1), 4–14 (2010). (themed issue on autism and technology. Guest-edited by Sarah Parsons)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bevan, R.: Another way on? A search for an alternative path into learning for people with a learning disability. Br. J. Spec. Educ. 30(2003), 100–106 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buckleitner, W.: The state of children’s software evaluation—yesterday, today and in the 21st century. Inf. Technol. Child. Educ. Ann. 1999, 211–220 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunninga, K., Heatha, B., Minniona, A.: Interaction between teachers and students with intellectual disability during computer-based activities: the role of human mediation. Technol. Disabil. 22(2010), 61–71 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Cappelletti, A., Gelmini, G., Pianesi, F., Rossi, F., Zancanaro, M.: Enforcing cooperative storytelling: first studies. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT ‘04), pp. 281–285. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Chao, L.L., Haxby, J.V., Martin, A.: Attribute-based neural substrates in posterior temporal cortex for perceiving and knowing about objects. Nat. Neurosci. 1999, 913–919 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Druin, A., Hanna, L.: The Design of Children’s Technology. Moran Kaufmann Publishers, Inc, Massachusetts (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrell, A.: Ethical Research with Children. McGraw-Hill International, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanna, L., Risden, K., Alexander, K.: Guidelines for usability testing with children. ACM Interact. 4(5), 9–14 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A., Rick, J., Bonnett, V., Yuill, N., Fleck, R., Marshall, P., Rogers, Y. (2009). Around the table: are multiple-touch surfaces better than single-touch for children’s collaborative interactions? In: 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, vol. 1, pp. 335–344. (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Hasselbring, T.S., Glaser, C.H.: Use of computer technology to help students with special needs. Future Child. 10(2), 102–122 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heijboer, M., van den Hoven, E.: Keeping up appearances: interpretation of tangible artifact design. In: Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridges (NordiCHI ‘08), pp. 162–171 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendrix, K., van Herk, R., Verhaegh, J., Markopoulos, P. Increasing children’s social competence through games, an exploratory study. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 182–185. ACM, NewYork (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Hengeveld, B., Hummels, C., Overbeeke, K., Voort, R., van Balkom, H., de Moor, J. Tangibles for toddlers learning language. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI ‘09), pp. 161–168. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Höysniemi, J., Hämäläinen, P., Turkki, L.: Wizard of Oz prototyping of computer vision based action games for children. In: 2004 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 27–34 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Höysniemi, J., Hamalainen, P., Turkki, L.: Using peer tutoring in evaluating usability. Interact. Comput. 15, 203–225 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ishii, H., Ullmer, B.: Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms. In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 234–241. ACM, New York (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  • Iwata, T., Yamabe, T., Poloj, M., Nakajima, T.: Traditional games meet ICT: a case study on go game augmentation. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ‘10), pp. 237–240 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaltenbrunner, M., Bencina, R.: reacTIVision: a computer-vision framework for table-based tangible interaction. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (pp. 69–74). ACM, New York (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  • Khandelwal, M., Mazalek, A.: Teaching table: a tangible mentor for pre-k math education. In: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction TEI ‘07, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 15–17 Feb 2007

    Google Scholar 

  • Leitner, J., Haller, M., Yun, K., Woo, W., Sugimoto, M., Inami, M., Cheok, A.D., Been-Lirn, H.D.: Physical interfaces for tabletop games. Comput. Entertain. 7(4), 61 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lepisto, A., Ovaska, S.: Usability evaluation involving participants with cognitive disabilities. In: Proceedings of the Third Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ‘04), pp. 305-308. ACM, New York, USA (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, Y., Fontijn, W., Markopoulos, P.: A tangible tabletop game supporting therapy of children with cerebral palsy. In: Markopoulos, P., Ruyter, B., Ijsselsteijn, W., Rowland, Duncan (eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Fun and Games, pp. 182–193. Springer, Berlin (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Montessori, M.: In: Carter, B.B. (ed.) The Secret of Childhood. Orient Longmans, Calcutta (1936)

    Google Scholar 

  • Magerkurth, C., Cheok, A.D., Nilsen, T.: Pervasive games: bringing computer entertainment back to the real world. ACM Trans. Comput. Entertain. 3(3), 4a (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malone, T.W.: Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: lessons from computer games. In: Thomas, J.C., Schneider, M.L. (eds.) Human Factors in Computer Systems, pp. 1–12. Ablex, Norwood (1984)

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandryk, R.L., Maranan, D.S.: False prophets: exploring hybrid board/video games. In: CHI ‘02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), CHI ‘02, pp. 640–641. ACM, New York, 20–25 April 2002

    Google Scholar 

  • Mansor, E.I., De Angeli, A., De Bruijn, O.: Little fingers on the tabletop: a usability evaluation in the kindergarten. In: Horizontal Interactive Human Computer Systems, 2008. 3rd IEEE International Workshop on TABLETOP 2008, pp. 93–96. IEEE (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marco, J., Cerezo, E., Baldassarri, S., Mazzone E., Read J.C.: Bringing tabletop technologies to kindergarten children. In: BCS-HCI ‘09 Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology, pp. 103–111 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marco, J., Cerezo, E., Baldassarri, S.: Playing with toys on a tabletop active surface. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, IDC ’10, pp. 296–299. Barcelona, Spain, 09–12 June 2010. ISBN 978-1-60558-951-0. (2010a)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marco, J., Baldassarri, S., Cerezo, E., Xu, D.Y., Read, J.C.: Lifelong interactions: let the experts talk: an experience of tangible game design with children. Interactions 17(1), 58–61 (2010b)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marco, J., Baldassarri, S., Cerezo, E.: NIKVision: developing a tangible application for and with children. JUCS 19(15), 2266–2291 (2013a)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marco, J., Cerezo, E., Baldassarri, S.: Bringing tabletop technology to all: evaluating a tangible farm game with kindergarten and special needs children. Pers. Ubiquit. Comput. 17(8), 1577–1591 (2013b)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Markopoulos, P., Bekker, M.M.: How to compare usability testing methods with children participants. In: Workshop Interaction Design for Children, Proceedings of the IFIP 9th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction—INTERACT ’05 Rome, pp. 153–158. Shaker Publishing, Maastricht (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  • Markopoulos, P., Read, J.C., MacFarlane, S.J., Höysniemi, J.: Evaluating Children’s Interactive Products. Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, P., Price, S., Rogers, Y.: Conceptualising tangibles to support learning. In: Proceedings of IDC 2003, pp. 101–109. ACM Press, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayhew, D.J.: The usability engineering lifecycle. In: CHI’99 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 147–148. ACM, New York (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, M.R., Pipper, A.M., Cassanego, A., Winograd, T.: Supporting cooperative language learning: interface design for an interactive table. Technical report, Computer Science Department, Stanford University (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  • Pagulayan, R.J., Keeker, K., Wixon, D., Romero, R., Fuller, T.: User-centered design in games. In: Jacko, J., Sears, A. (eds.) Handbook for Human-Computer Interaction in Interactive Systems, pp. 883–906. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • Piaget, J.: The Origins of Intelligence in Children. International Universities Press, New York (1936/1952)

    Google Scholar 

  • Piper, A.M., O’Brien, E., Morris, M.R., Winograd, T.: SIDES: a cooperative tabletop computer game for social skills development. In: Proceedings of the 2006 20th Anniversary Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 1–10. ACM, New York (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Pontual Falcão, T.: The role of tangible technologies for special education. In: Proceedings of the 28th of the International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ‘10), pp. 2911–2914. ACM, New York, USA (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, S., Rogers, Y.: Lets get physical: the learning benefits of interacting in digitally-augmented physical spaces. Comput. Educ. 43(1), 137–151 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raisamo, R., Hippula, A., Patomäki, S., Tuominen, E., Pasto, V., Hasu, M.: Testing usability of multimodal applications with visually impaired children. IEEE Multimedia 13(3), 70–76 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Read, J.C., MacFarlane S.J., Casey C.: Endurability, engagement and expectations: measuring children’s fun. In: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 189–198. Shaker Publishing, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, Y., Rodden, T.: Configuring spaces and surfaces to support collaborative interactions. In: Public and Situated Displays, pp. 45–79. Springer, Netherlands (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • Rounding, K., Tee, K., Wu, X., Guo, C., Tse, E.: Evaluating interfaces with children. Pers. Ubiquit. Comput. 17(8), 1663–1666 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scaife, M., Rogers, Y.: Kids as informants: telling us what we didn’t know or confirming what we knew already. In: Druin, A. (ed.) The Design of Children's Technology, pp. 27–50. San Francisco, CA, Morgan Kaufmann (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Schöning, J., Hook, J., Bartindale, T., Schmidt, D., Oliver, P., Echtler, F., von Zadow, U.: Building interactive multi-touch surfaces. In: Tabletops-Horizontal Interactive Displays, pp. 27–49. Springer, London (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, S., Mandryk, R., Inkpen, K.: Understanding children’s collaborative interactions in shared environments. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 19(2), 220–228 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sim, G., MacFarlane, S., Read, J.: All work and no play: measuring fun, usability, and learning in software for children. Comput. Educ. 46(3), 235–248 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sluis, R.J.W., Weevers, I., Van Schijndel, C.H.G J., Kolos-Mazuryk, L., Fitrianie, S., Martens, J.B.O.S.: Read-it: five-to-seven-year-old children learn to read in a tabletop environment. In: Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Interaction Design and Children: Building a Community, pp. 73–80. ACM, New York (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sluis-Thiescheffer, W., Bekker, T., Eggen, B.: Comparing early design methods for children. In: 6th International Conference on interaction Design and Children, pp. 17–24 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  • Utani. http://www.utani.org. Accessed 10 March 2012

  • Van Kesteren, I.E.H., Bekker, M.M., Vermeeren, A.P.O.S., Lloyd, P.A.: Assessing usability evaluation methods on their effectiveness to elicit verbal comments from children. In: Proceedings of the Interaction Design and Children Conference 2003, Preston UK, pp. 41–49. ACM, Inc., New York, July 2003

    Google Scholar 

  • van Veen, M.: Improving collaboration with racketeer: development of a serious game with multi-touch interaction for teaching children with PDD-NOS collaboration. Student Doctoral thesis. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Vermeeren, A.P.O.S., den Bouwmeester, K., Aasman, J., de Ridder, H.: DEVAN: a detailed video analysis of user test data. Behav. Inf. Technol. 21, 403–423 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, D.Y., Read, J.C., Sim, G., McManus, B., Qualter, P.: Children and ‘smart’ technologies: can children’s experiences be interpreted and coded? In: Proceedings of the 2009 British Computer Society Conference on Human-Computer interaction, Cambridge, United Kingdom, pp. 224-231. British Computer Society Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. British Computer Society, Swinton, UK, 01–05 Sept 2009

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerman, O., Arida, S., Resnick, M.: Extending tangible interfaces for education: digital Montessori inspired manipulatives. In Proceedings of CHI ‘05, pp. 859–868. ACM Press, New York (2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We want to thank all the children, parents, nurseries and schools that participated in the NIKVision tests. We also thank the staff of the ChiCI Group from the University of Central Lancashire (UK), the staff from Colegio Público de Educación Especial Alborada de Zaragoza (Spain) and the students of the University of Zaragoza (Spain) who participated in the project. This work has been partly financed by the Spanish Government through the DGICYT contract TIN2011-24660.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Computer Graphics Group (GIGA), Computer Science Department, Engineering Research Institute of Aragon (I3A), University of Zaragoza, Ed. Ada Byron. Campus Río Ebro, C/María de Luna N.1, 50015, Zaragoza, Spain

    Eva Cerezo, Javier Marco & Sandra Baldassarri

Authors
  1. Eva Cerezo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Javier Marco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sandra Baldassarri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Javier Marco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Anton Nijholt

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cerezo, E., Marco, J., Baldassarri, S. (2015). Hybrid Games: Designing Tangible Interfaces for Very Young Children and Children with Special Needs. In: Nijholt, A. (eds) More Playful User Interfaces. Gaming Media and Social Effects. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-546-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-546-4_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-287-545-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-287-546-4

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation