Eyes free interfaces for educational games

XIV Simposio Internacional de Informática Educativa (SIIE 2012)

Eyes-free Interfaces for Educational Games

Pablo Moreno-Ger(pablom@fdi.ucm.es)

Andorra, 31/10/2012

About me

Pablo Moreno-Ger E-mail: pablom@fdi.ucm.es http://www.e-ucm.es/people/

publications Universidad Complutense de

Madrid E-Learning Research group Specialized in Serious Games

(educational games)

MotivationWhy games should be accessible

Video games are becoming big!

The largest entertainment industry Best movie (24h): $92M Best videogame (24h):

$400M World of Warcraft

$180M per month

Are videogames just for kids?

Average player age 2011, Entertainment Software Association

Games are not only for leisure!

Educational Games are becoming important

Science PiratesWhyville.net

ReMission FoodForce

But… are games accessible?

In just a few seconds the player uses …

1. Stimuli reception(visual, auditive, tactile)

2. Decision making (what’s the next move?)

3. Next action is executed using input devices

But… are games accessible?

In just a few seconds the player uses …

1. Stimuli reception(visual, auditive, tactile)

2. Decision making (what’s the next move?)

3. Next action is executed using input devices

Consequence:Games are rather

inaccessible content!

Accessibility in games

Accessibility Increases the Cost, Uncertain ROI

Not fully covered. Why?

Game Developers’ Lack of Awareness

Adapted Hardware

Some Approaches

Closed captioning

Special hardware

Accessibility in games

Not fully covered. Why?

Game Developers’ Lack of Awareness

Adapted Hardware

Some Approaches

Closed captioning

Special hardware

Accessibility Increases the Cost, Uncertain ROI

Accessibility in games

Accessibility Increases the Cost, Uncertain ROI

Not fully covered. Why?

Game Developers’ Lack of Awareness

Adapted Hardware

Some Approaches

Closed captioning

Special hardware

In Education All Content Must be Accessible!

General approach and goals

General approach

AdvantagesReuse efforts (build once,

use many) Increase visibility

ApproachInclude built-in accessibility features in game

development platforms

ProblemsHigh cost of accessibility

solutionsGame Developers’ Lack of

Awareness

Challenges

Variety

Scalability

Evaluation

Cost

High-levelLow-level

VS

How to make N games accessible at once?

Is very costly! Games must be developed (expensive)Besides …engagement,

enjoyment, frustration … how do you measure that?

How much can we reduce cost and effort

needed?

Goals

Q1. Feasibility• Can game development software cope with disability

automatically?Q2. Cost reduction• How much can effort, time, cost needed can be cut

down?

Case 1

eAdventure (http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es)

Game Authoring Tool Teacher-oriented game authoring tool

No programming needed!2D Point-and-click games & simulations+150 countries+30,000 downloads10 languages

http://e-adventure-e.ucm.es

eAdventure

Introducing Accessibility in eAdventure

Reduced MobilityBlindness Low vision

Profiles

Interaction

Input

Point-and-click

Voice commands

Text commands

Output

Sound

Text-To-Speech

Descriptive sounds

Graphics

Normal mode

High Contrast

mode

Built-in accessibility modules

1492

UsersBlindnessReduced

mobilityDocumentary RTVE “El

Mundo se mueve conmigo” (Chapter 6)

My first day at work

Preliminary evaluation My first day at work - Usability

• 15 users, 10 with disability profile, 60” game play• Likert 1 to 4 questionnaire•

Preliminary evaluation My first day at work – Extra cost

Example: High contrast mode Total: 647 art resources To implement high contrast mode: 53 more Increase of only 7.57%

Case 2

Hypothesis: Not all blind people prefer the same Game interfaces

Experiment

Variable: Gaming habits3 interfaces 3 short games1 user w/ gaming habits, other w/o

I#1: Cyclical navigation system

Similar to web navigation

The easiest, almost trivial

I#2: Sonar

I#3: Natural Language Processing

Short commands formulated in natural language

E.g.: Grab BallClimb the treeDescribe the sceneGo to …

Results

Both users were able to complete the three minigames in about 15 minutes

Cyclical navigation system is the easiest to use

Sonar is the most fun interface

Best overall interface Natural language commands for

user with little gaming habits Sonar for the user with more

gaming habits

Interface Usability Engagement Additional Cost

Navigation (1) Sonar (2) Commands (3)

Case 3

BFG Toolkit (http://en.blind-faith-games.e-ucm.es/)

Low-level game engine for Android One disability profile: blind users 3 Games developed for evaluation In collaboration with 2 undergraduate students

Ongoing evaluation (online)

509 downloads 1281 downloads320 downloads

• Online evaluation (lack of access to end users)• Likert 1 to 5 questionnaire• 26 respondents so far

• 12 blind• 24 no disability

http://goo.gl/gZiMM

Results are encouraging

Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q110%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

5 (very positive)4 (positive)3 (neutral)2 (negative)1 (very negative)

3,00 3,40 3,10 3,40 3,40 3,30 3,60AVG

Conclusions

Wrapping up

Conclusion• Can game development software cope with disability

automatically? => Seems so• How much can effort, time, cost needed can be cut down? =>

Considerable reductionFuture work• More games (cost, usability), more profiles!• Put eAdventure accessibility modules into production• Tackle game design barriers => Game inspection tools

Evaluation Tool 1Evaluation Tool 2

Evaluation Tool N

…

Game definition

(storyboard, Game universe)

Art Resources

EvaluationReport

Thank you! Any questions?

Thanks to …