Design of Exergames with the Collaborative Participation of Older

Adults

Characteristics of Healthy Elder

They natural decay, diseases and physical dependence do not lead to a major impediments to perform daily life activities

Great heterogeneity in functional condition among peers

Functional decay often is accelerated as result of depressive states and sedentary lifestyle.

Muscular disuse slows the neuromuscular response, reduces strength in movement and loss of balance.

[1]

General Characteristics of the Elderly

PHYSICAL ASPECTS PSYCHOLOGICAL-AFFECTIVE ASPECTS

(Alba et al, 2001; Glanz et al, 2008; Wilson-Escalante et al,2009; INGER,2010) 3

Social interaction among elder’s gamers

Metaphors

Roles emerged from game structure

Rhetoric

Roles brought into the game from outsideFriendship

Fellowship

[2,3,6,7,8,9]

Methodology

Requirements analysisSummary: The exercise

-Should not cause harm or pain

-The exertion must be controlled

-It has to produce a benefit, avoiding fatigue

-It must be based on physical capacity

-There should be a design of an exercise baseline

-There should be goals and progress differentiated by level of capacity

Preferences and issues (older adults)

Action Research

[17]

Iteration 1.Social Behavior

Observe gamer’s engagement and classify them based on their level of participation

Some elders have tendency to isolate themselves

Group support is not enough to engage all participantsEasy metaphors facilitate elder effectivenessPeer’s effectiveness is perceived as “easy to play”More movement increases social participation

Replace pictorial instructions with mimics of movementsPromote that more skilled games helps to less skilled ones.Integrate observers to playground area.

Entrance

Action planning

Intervention

Evaluation

Iteration 2.Exertion perceived

Analyze motion promoted in game interface and provide with new facilitators movements to gamer

Provide facilitators movements to less skilled gamersincrease movement level in games selected

Human instructing increases the number of active gamers.Few active gamers were highly participatory.Physical limitations implies more time to control the gameplay

Designed facilitators movements, modify playground area to teach these movements and promote coach figure

Entrance

Action planning

Intervention

Evaluation

Iteration 3.Effectiveness

Classify gamers’ motion capacity using enabled elements in game design and adequate the gameplay based on the classification

Is necessary re build metaphors using a rhetoric adequate for each level of motion capacity.

There was no more passive players.The group’s clustering helps to identify adequate motion, risk and tiredness during game time.However some gamer seems ashamed with their low performances

Evaluated the functional capacity using joint’s arcs of motion and a simple test of balance.The group was clustered in four subgroups and for each cluster were re expressed the movements

Entrance

Action planning

Intervention

Evaluation

Iteration 4.Social Game

Include new warm up sessionUse simple casual games to improve performances Provide continuous feedback about bad practices

Change peer to peer challenges by group challenges.Use cooperative play rather than competition.Leveling gamers lets hide low performances

Highly engaged group with exergames.Efficacy in game improves social interaction.The gamers feels more confident with their motion.

Leveling scores using handicaps.Replace individual scores for group scores.Use a cooperative gameplay rather individual competition

Diagnosis

Action planning

Intervention

Evaluation

Adaptability

Conclusions

• We presented a long-term case study applying the Action Research methodology• The exergames’ design makes compete all gamers under the same

conditions supposing than all gamer all needs is time and practice• The gesture detection needs to take into account the gamer mobility

capacity classification and adapt the gameplay to this context• Cooperative gameplay and a the design oriented to spectator

increases the game engagement

Future work

• Define a player classification based on joint’s arcs of movements, a simple balance test and speed of neuromuscular response• Design gameplay adaptability and develop a prototype of an

exergame for older adults using this classification• Establish design principles for cooperative play and observer-oriented

design of exergames

Thanks for your attention

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