A Soft Approach to Computer Science: Designing & Developing Computer Games for and With

A Soft Approach to Computer Science: Designing & Developing Computer Games for and with Senior Citizens

Vero Vanden Abeele, Jelle Husson, Luc Vandeurzen, Stef Desmet

e-Medialab, Group T – LeuvenEngineeringSchool

Vesaliusstraat 13, B-3000 Belgium

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ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a soft approach to programming and especially game development, based on the inclusion of the end-user in the development process and on the rigorous use of a scaled-down version of the Unified Process.

Students were assigned to develop a computer game for and with senior citizens. The project started off by observing senior citizens in their natural habitat, researching what passions occur in their daily lives.Consequently, students and seniors co-designed the selected ideas into game concepts. One game concept was chosen to be developed: Petanque, a multi-player jeux-de-boule game.

A player-centred, iterative and incremental approach was applied during the actual development of this game. During a five-week course, the students worked full-time in a team taking on different project roles. We encouraged using existing software engines and frameworks to ensure that within limited amount of time a playable demo could emerge. This demo was finally evaluated by a senior audience.

This project resulted in an inspiring computer game, directly grafted onto the passions and desires of the seniors. Students gained insight in and empathy with their player audience and became aware of the diverse soft skills that are necessary for the creation of successful software applications.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

H.5.2 User Interfaces - User-Centred Design

K.6.3 Software Management, Software development, Software process

General Terms

Design, Human Factors, Management

Keywords

Seniors, Elderly, Game Development, Game Design, Co-design, Participatory Design, Human-Centred, Player-Centred Design, Software Engineering, Unified Process.

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1The Master in e-Media

The Master in e-Media is a graduate program for students that have a bachelor in computer science or an equivalent degree. The program specializes in the development of rich media applications and has a special focus on higher level programming skills, software engineering, computer graphics, digital media and human-computer interaction. Recently, we saw a rising interest with our students in game development. Therefore, the program started to incorporate games as a specific topic. In particular, a course on User Experience was broadened to incorporate player-centred design and more fundamentally, we oriented the subject of our Multidisciplinary Project to game development[1]. This Multidisciplinary Project is a five-week, full-time course in an attempt to mimic a real world job situation. Students work together in a team, taking on different roles in order to manage the development process. In this project, we follow a scaled down version of the Unified Process (UP) [2, 5, 9] to software development, together with a player-centred approach. The Unified Process defines an iterative and incremental software engineering framework that can be extended and customized for specific projects. This hands-on, real-life experience prepares our students for the intricacies of large-scale programming in a versatile, creative and fast-paced (game) industry.

1.2The I-Methodology

Students in computer science and thus game development courses prefer to tap into their creativity and come up with their own ideas [15], referred to as the I-methodology [12]. This self-centred design process often results in boys designing for boys [6] or to put it in other words, gamers designing for gamers. Combining the I-methodology with the fact that engineering and computer science programs (and consequently the game development industry) are mainly populated by young white males [7], the difficulties are obvious when trying to develop games aimed at a wider audience. As a result, a widespread critique is that the game industry has difficulties in addressing non-traditional player groups [14]. The industry however, is aware of the lack of diversity and the need for a more player-centred approach in order to gain maturity [18]. Similarly, with our e-Media program, we do not only want to address the need for software development and management skills, we also want to address the need for a more human-centred, more inclusive approach to user-interaction.

1.3Elderly and the digital divide

A call for projects to close the digital divide for elderly in society, launched by the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation [8] in October 2005, drew our attention to a senior gaming audience. The symposium of the foundation indicated that there was a clear necessity to develop software applications with a senior audience in mind. The digital divide is threatening the independence of senior citizens. Computer, internet, mobile phones, e-mail, Internet banking, interactive television, etc., modern life is increasingly digital. Seniors did not grow up in digital society and have a hard time adapting to and coping with these new circumstances. However, the foundation also mentioned an opportunity; seniors want to and can manage in a digital society, as long as applications are designed with respect for their user characteristics. Two key points to lower the digital threshold are a greater focus on user-friendliness and a better match between applications and the needs and interests of seniors. For the e-Media program, choosing this audience clearly necessitated a player-centred approach to game development while aiming at the noble goal of closing the digital divide.

2.PLAYER-CENTRED GAME DEVELOPMENT FOR AND WITH SENIORS

We deemed a player-centred approach necessary to innovate gameplay for a senior audience. Therefore, we conceived a project in which students developed games for and with senior citizens. The project activities encompassed five different phases, distributed over a semester course on User Experience (during the first semester), and a condense five-week, full-time course on game development (during the second semester), called Multidisciplinary Project. In phase one, we started out with ethnographic inquiries of senior citizens. Consequently, in the second phase, seniors and researchers brainstormed for ideas and converted selected ideas into game concepts via a participatory design process. During the third phase, the game concepts were presented to a broader audience of seniors and one game concept was selected. This game concept was developed in the fourth phase. During this phase we used a Unified Process (UP) approach to develop a playable demo in only five weeks. In the fifth and final phase, the game was played and evaluated by the seniors. Phase one, two, and three were part of the User Experience course in which ten students participated. Phase four and five took place in the Multidisciplinary Project in which six students participated.[2]We now discuss the five different phases and clarify this soft approach to computer science with some illustrations.

2.1Phase one. Ethnographic inquiries

We started out by conducting ethnographic inquiries. Ethnographic inquiries originated in anthropology as a means of studying people in the wild. In the community of Human Computer Interaction it quickly caught on as a type of qualitative user research that is particularly suited when designing for user groups that are little understood [4]. Ethnographic enquiries are part of those research techniques that are typically employed at the fuzzy front end of the design process. Through a method of observation and open-ended interviewing, audiences are studied in their natural environment. When user requirements are still vague and when the social context of an application needs further investigation, ethnographic research techniques have proven to be helpful[13]. When designing games, this type of user information can be especially helpful. Game design is a second order design[16, p.171], meaning that as a designer one can only design the rules of the game and never the direct player experience. Therefore, to understand what can transport a player into this second order reality or magic circle demands a deep understanding of the player audience and those aspects of game design that provide meaningful play[16]. Ethnographic inquiries are particularly suited for understanding what provides meaning and how to transport the player into this suspension of disbelief.

In our case, during the time span of one week, ten seniors were observed and interviewed by our students in their homes (one student observed one senior). Ten senior citizens (seven male and three female) participated in the research project. The age varied from sixty-eight to eighty years. All seniors were living in Flanders (Belgium). We should stress that we did not look for the ‘average senior’ but rather aimed to include active and healthy persons that wanted to think creatively and contribute to the design process. Seniors were asked to record all enjoyable activities or passions. It was stressed that a passion is something that makes the time fly, but can really be anything. We asked seniors to write these passions on sticky notes and stick these notes in a passion logbook or on objects in the environment. Also, we asked to take photographs of any artifacts, surroundings or people related to these passions. If possible show and tells of the passions were requested.

During three consequent visits, the students directly analyzed different factors that were important for a better understanding of these passions or enjoyable activities. What is the nature of the passion? What exactly makes it enjoyable? How is that passion situated in time and space? Are other people involved? Is there technology that facilitates the passion? Finally, students asked the senior to create a top five of the most important passions for him or her. To finalize the part of the research, the student wrote a biography of the senior that captured his/her daily life, needs, wishes and dreams, and detailed the nature of the passions. In total, this not only gave a list of ten biographies and fifty passions in elderly life that provided actionable inspiration, but more important, it ensured that students gained insight in and empathy with the lives of senior citizens [1].

--- Figure 1. An ethnographic observation of a senior at her home.---

2.2Phase two. Participatory design

After the ethnographic inquiries were finished, we started with participatory design sessions. Participatory design (PD) emerged as a design practice in Scandinavian countries in the seventies in the development of work-oriented software applications [21]. The end-user is included as an equal design partner in the design team with direct influence on design decisions [19]. From abstract players our seniors became stakeholders in the design process, contributing directly as design partners. For this project, the aim of PD was a reinforcement of the ethnographic enquiries; our aim was to include users and social contexts into the design process to ensure that meaningful play would come out of the design sessions. However the ethnographic enquiries were not directly aimed on games or playful behavior but more broadly focused on passions. With the PD sessions, we narrowed our focus and converged on games or electronic entertainment. We constructed design teams consisting of one student and one senior citizen (the same pairswere teamed up for the ethnographic observations). The PD sessions consisted of a brainstorm and a co-design session. A social scientist and an interaction designer were present to moderate and facilitate the design processes.

Seniors and students first brainstormed in small groups for possible ideas. Not surprisingly, many of the passions that were listed in the top five during the ethnographic inquiries also ended up as ideas on the wall during this brainstorm session. After the idea generation phase, the ideas were clustered and the senior-student teams evaluated them on their attractiveness. In the end, each team chose one idea to elaborate upon.

Consequently, this idea was then co-designed into a game concept by the student and the senior. We asked for a document with the title of the game genre and short overview, a description of the visual arts and style, a listing of the core objectives and challenges, the story or narrative if present, the gameplay theme, the game structure and levels, character features of protagonist and antagonists, an overview of player mechanics and reward/scoring mechanisms, and a description of the environment. Design teams were also encouraged to create paper prototypes and visualize their vision.However, the results of the participatory design workshops did not leverage this kind of detailed document; instead what came out of it were more high-level concepts. In most cases the theme was chosen and the type of gameplay was elaborated a little further. To ask for player mechanics, however, or reward or scoring mechanisms was clearly too difficult. Maybe this was due to time constraints (2 hour session per workshop) or maybe due to the limited game design experience of the participants. Also for the students this was the first encounter with a game design document. For each of the ten teams, the end result of this participatory design process was a rough concept document’ and if possible a paper prototype. Although high level and unpolished, we found most games to be surprisingly rich and diverse in themes and play style.

--- Figure 2. Seniors and student are co-designing a game concept. ---

2.3Phase three. Presentation and selection of the Game Concepts

From the ethnographic observations, we knew that seniors spend a lot of time on activities such as playing cards, solving puzzles, watching television, etc. But when listing a top five of the passions, these activities fell short and did not show up. Neither did these activities make it into the brainstormed ideas and game concepts. We expected more straightforward games concepts that were a translation of current puzzle or card games being played by seniors. Instead, game concepts were layered with different themes and gameplay styles, and could interest a non-senior audience as well. The games ranged from interactive cookbooks with humoristic agents, virtual cultural travels, sport simulations to role-playing games and family quizzes.

But most important, most games were about being connected as social beings; six out of ten games were explicitly multiplayer games. It was often stressed that one should play together and that playing should not be an isolated activity. Furthermore, seniors required that games should have a purpose or value, meaning there should be some educational or cultural benefit (five out of ten games were about educating the player). And finally, we found that seniors stressed that one should contribute to society, even when designing games it was often asked how this could help create a better society.

From this stage we derived a passion model [1]that focused on important aspects of elderly life and aimed at providing a framework for meaningful play for our seniors. We understood that this generation emphasized social connectedness, personal growth and that there should be a contribution to society. We organized passions and game concepts accordingly. Taking into account the passion model and the ten high level game concepts, the interaction designer turned this raw material into eight attractive game concepts, presented on posters.[3] (Two game concepts were too much alike and converted into one; one game concept was simply too vague.)

During a bimonthly meeting of the senior city council, the game concepts were presented on posters and seniors were asked to vote on their favourite game. There was no clear indication or consensus about one winning concept. Upon practical considerations of the staff, we chose the Petanque game to be developed further. Petanque is an outdoor sports game, typically played by a senior audience in Flanders and France. The main goal of the game is to throw balls as close to the jack (a smaller ball) as possible.

2.4Phase 4. Development of ‘Petanque’

The actual development of the Petanque game started during a five-week, full-time course in which a team of 6 students contributed to the development. In a multi-disciplinary, team-oriented way students developed the actual game. A strong focus was on an iterative and incremental software engineering approach to carry the project to a successful end. Identical to classical software development, many game development post mortems sound the same:

“The game was late. It had too many bugs. Functionality was not what was originally intended. Getting the game out the door took too many development hours and the development team was under too much pressure. Even when the game was launched, management was not pleased”. [Llopis, 11] A common development methodology in game development is the lack of one, often referred to as a code-and-fix environment [11]. Therefore, applying methodologies of modern software development could only improve the process of game development.

From a software engineering perspective, this problem can be solved by switching from a waterfall based approach to an iterative and incremental approach as described in the (Rational) Unified Process [5, 3, 9, 10]. Within the Unified Process, each iteration selects some use cases and projects risks. This selection is taken through the entire process of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and deployment. At the end, this results in a new project increment. High priority use cases and project risks are tackled in the beginning of the project. Only after a few initial iterations, the focus is put on the development of an executable baseline architecture which should validate the architecture of the system and will act as the foundation of the remaining development.