Abstract
Older adults face significant challenges when trying to incorporate contemporary technology into their lives, which negatively impacts their ability to take full advantage of technological advances in their daily routines. This problem is particularly evident in the entertainment domain, where technological video games can be beneficial to those who venture to use them. Although a growing number of older people are adopting digital games in their daily activities, increasing technological sophistication also creates obstacles in their adaptation process. An example of this is the proliferation of pervasive technological games, which make use of devices such as virtual assistants, sensors embedded in mobile devices, and virtual reality to provide advantages to the older adult population. This article will address the fundamental aspects aimed at improving the game experience in these pervasive environments, taking into consideration the specific needs of this demographic group. This results in the specification of a set of heuristics that can be used to identify potential design problems in game-based systems with some degree of pervasiveness oriented to the elderly population.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Santos, L.H., et al.: Pervasive game design to evaluate social interaction effects on levels of physical activity among older adults. J. Rehabil. Assistive Technol. Eng. 6, 205566831984444 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/2055668319844443
Vagetti, G.C., Barbosa Filho, V.C., Moreira, N.B., de Oliveira, V., Mazzardo, O., de Campos, W.: Association between physical activity and quality of life in the elderly: a systematic review, 2000–2012. Rev. Bras. Psiquiatr. 36, 76–88 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2012-0895
Courtin, E., Knapp, M.: Social isolation, loneliness and health in old age: a scoping review. Health Soc. Care Community 25, 799–812 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.12311
Arango-López, J., Gutiérrez Vela, F.L., Collazos, C.A., Gallardo, J., Moreira, F.: GeoPGD: methodology for the design and development of geolocated pervasive games. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 20, 465–477 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-020-00769-w
Huizinga, J.: Homo Ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. Eur. Early Childhood Educ. Res. J. 19, 1–24 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568202009004005
Benford, S., Magerkurth, C., Ljungstrand, P.: Bridging the physical and digital in pervasive gaming. Commun. ACM 48, 54–57 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1145/1047671.1047704
Cerezo, E., Blasco, A.C.: The space journey game: an intergenerational pervasive experience. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings, pp. 1–6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3313055
Salazar, J.A., Arango, J., Gutiérrez, F.L., Moreira, F.: Older adults and games from a perspective of playability, game experience and pervasive environments: a systematics literature review. World Conf. Inf. Syst. Technol. 2022, 444–453 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04819-7_42
Salazar, J., López, J., Gutiérrez, F., Trillo, J.: Design of technology-based pervasive gaming experiences : properties and degrees of pervasiveness. Congreso Español de Videojuegos 2022 (CEV). (2022)
Salazar, J., Arango, J., Gutierrez, F.: Pervasiveness for learning in serious games applied to older adults. In: Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality – TEEM, vol. 1 (2022)
Quiñones, D., Rusu, C., Rusu, V.: A methodology to develop usability/user experience heuristics. Comput. Stand. Interfaces 59, 109–129 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2018.03.002
Kitchenham, B., Charters, S.: Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Engineering 2, 1051 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1145/1134285.1134500
Rienzo, A., Cubillos, C.: Playability and player experience in digital games for elderly: a systematic literature review. Sensors (Switzerland) 20, 1–23 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3390/s20143958
Awada, I.A., Mocanu, I., Florea, A.M., Rusu, L., Arba, R., Cramariuc, B.: Enhancing the physical activity of older adults based on user profiles. In: 16th Networking in Education and Research RoEduNet International Conference, RoEduNet 2017 - Proceedings (2017). https://doi.org/10.1109/ROEDUNET.2017.8123749
De Paula, G., Valentim, P., Seixas, F., Santana, R., Muchaluat-Saade, D.: Sensory effects in cognitive exercises for elderly users: Stroop game. In: Proceedings - IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems. 2020-July, 132–137 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/CBMS49503.2020.00032
Seah, E.T.W., Kaufman, D., Sauvé, L., Zhang, F.: Play, learn, connect: older adults’ experience with a multiplayer, educational, digital bingo game. J. Educ. Comput. Res. 56, 675–700 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633117722329
Tabak, M., De Vette, F., Van DIjk, H., Vollenbroek-Hutten, M.: A game-based, physical activity coaching application for older adults: design approach and user experience in daily life. Games Health J. 9, 215–226 (2020).https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2018.0163
Salazar-Cardona, J., Arango-López, J., Gutiérrez-Vela, F.L.: PL/PX Platform: online tool for the evaluation of fun and game experiences. In: Conference: II Congreso Español de Videojuegos 2023. ceur-ws.org, Madrid (2023)
Salazar-Cardona, J.A., Cano, S., Gutiérrez-Vela, F.L., Arango, J.: Designing a tangible user interface (TUI) for the elderly based on their motivations and game elements. Sensors 23, 9513 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/s23239513
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the PLEISAR-Social project, Ref. PID2022-136779OB-C33, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE). Thanks are due to PhD Alexandru Cristian Rusu for guiding and directly corroborating the proper application of his methodology for the definition of our set of heuristics. Finally, we would like to thank MINCIENCIAS of government of Colombia for providing the necessary resources for the completion of this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix A
Appendix A
Heuristics specifications is available in: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AkaBCG8z281S40QZWfPCCQ6gnAYy?e=rjzKTe.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Cardona, J.S., Vela, F.L.G., Lopez, J.A., Moreira, F. (2024). Heuristics for Designing Pervasive Game Experiences in the Older Adult Population. In: Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Dzemyda, G., Moreira, F., Poniszewska-Marańda, A. (eds) Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 988. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60224-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60224-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-60223-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-60224-5
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)