Lessons Learned: Adult Learners and Serious Game Design

1
Lessons Learned Adult Learners and Serious Game
Design

• Rachel Joyce, MA, Marcy Verduin, MD, Steve LaRowe
  PhD, Clint Bowers, PhD, Jan Cannon-Bowers, PhD
• University of Central Florida
• Institute for Simulation and Training
• College of Medicine
• Medical University of South Carolina
• Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
• August 20th, 2009
• SALT Conference
• Alexandria, VA

2
The Big Idea

• Discuss some of the interesting lessons-learned
  from our recent effort developing a game-based
  learning platform for adult recovering alcoholic
  patients to practice RP (relapse prevention)
  skills. Our talk will include issues related to
  game design, art style, and working with our user
  population. We hope that some of these lessons
  will be interesting for designers of adult
  education.

3
Why Serious Games for Therapy?

• Often, psychotherapy includes the teaching of new
  knowledge and skills. These new abilities must be
  applied during times of great stress, or
  precisely the environmental characteristics that
  often characterize the challenges confronted by
  training researchers in other contexts. Thus, it
  is not unlikely that techniques that are
  effective in training might also benefit those
  learning new coping techniques.
• Gains associated with high-fidelity (and )
  simulations (such as Second Life) can be achieved
  by the careful creation of lower-fidelity
  synthetic learning environments.
• Currently, serious game products targeted for
  therapeutic practice are commonly called Games
  for Health.

4
Background on Guardian Angel Game

• Serious game for health titled Guardian Angel
  funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
• Developed by the RETRO Lab at UCFs IST with SMEs
  from UCF College of Medicine MUSC Dept. of
  Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
• Adult patients at the Ralph H. Johnson VAMC are
  end-users non-gamers, poor computer skills,
  sixth-grade reading level, in treatment (AA) for
  recovering from alcoholism. Potentially hostile
  to computer-based intervention.

5
Guardian Angel Design Cycle

• RETRO Lab SG Mental Model
• Iterative Design Process
• Fischs 3 Rules for Game Play
• Narrative
• Art Style
• Jan 2009 Focus Group Feedback
• Narrative
• Game play

6
Serious Games are NOT Simulations
7
Iterative Design

• As game developers in academia, we MUST practice
  iterative design.
• Conduced usability 3 rounds testing trials at UCF
  with student body populations and 2 focus groups
  with user population.
• We are always learning new lessons about design
  and about users.

Usability Testing _at_ NSTC 10/08 for DCSim.
8
Fischs 3 SG Design Rules

• matching specific educational topics or concepts
  to their most appropriate medium
• placing educational content at the heart of game
  play targeting real-world behavior or thinking as
  they play the game
• design for feedback and hint structures to
  scaffold for difficult content

Fisch , S. (2005). Making Educational Computer
Games Educational. Proceedings to the 2005
conference on Interaction design and Children.
Boulder, CO. 56.
9
Fischs 3 Rules in GA

• Flash game lite-weight, accessible online,
  affords robust interactivity in simple interface,
  easily edited for iterations. Minigames provide
  more focused learning interventions in a larger
  game world.
• All game play was designed around AA treatment
  and RP skills, and eventually user focus group
  feedback.
• Post each round of play, a review launches and
  the interface hints can be turned on/off in
  addition to multiple modes of instructions.

Fisch , S. (2005). Making Educational Computer
Games Educational. Proceedings to the 2005
conference on Interaction design and Children.
Boulder, CO. 56.
10
Narratives

• Following Liebermans (2001) narrative model of
  having the user manage the player-characters
  health in game, the Guardian Angel narrative puts
  the user in a similar role as an angel guiding
  the in-game character to health and wellness
  (i.e. sobriety) from afar. If they are
  successful, they will be promoted to Guardian
  Angel.
• Non-gender specific pro
• Non-race specific pro
• Religious context con (?)
• In-game character bios were crafted to reflect
  our user population closely.

Lieberman, D. (2001), Management of Chronic
Pediatric Diseases with Interactive Health Games
Theory and Research Findings. Journal of
Ambulatory Care Management. (1) 34.
11
Art Style

• Still wanting the Guardian Angle users to
  engage the gaming world and leave their own
  reality while playing, the visual design had to
  first and foremost be simple, and true to life
  with touches of imagination. After rounds and
  rounds of concept art iterations as well as
  focus group feedback, the visual design is
  similar to the film, A Scanner Darkly.

12
Art Style/Character Poses
13
Focus Group Feedback Narrative

• Michael Jones might need PTSD (Post Traumatic
  Stress Disorder). Also you don't enlist to become
  a pilot. As he became a pilot became, he must
  also be an officer.
• Add more drug and alcohol history in the
  narratives. For example, arrests, type of
  substance abused, etc. As is, their addictions
  arent believable.
• Susan Reinhart should have experienced military
  sexual trauma disorder. This is a major problem
  for female veterans.
• Life-long friends to be some people in the game
  - people whom they have drank with for many
  years. More persistent in getting them (in-game
  characters) to try to drink and the hardest to
  refuse.

14
Focus Group Feedback Game Play Sample
FG Feedback
Design Edit
Route Planner Minigame The goal is to navigate
home avoiding all alcohol high-risk areas in a
time and money pressure scenario.
15
Lets Play!
16
Lessons Learned

• True-to-Life in-game characters preferable to
  demographic.
• Fair Gaming Skills doesnt mean users dont
  have gaming opinions.
• Presumed Fair computer skills initial roadblock
  to a flow of game play, but doesnt stay that way
  for long.
• Multiple media modes of instruction and forced
  time-on-task for instructions a must have.

17
Summary

• We described an iterative design process for one
  group that may typify later application of game
  design principles. By obtaining user feedback
  during the design process, we were not only able
  to develop a game that is likely to be more
  usable than it would otherwise, but we also
  obtained a few lessons-learned that we can share
  with the game development and research
  communities.