This is a lecture I gave for students at Hanzehoogeschool.

1. Co-design of a (Wii) game
for the blind and sighted
Liliane Kuiper-Hoyng
Lili.Kuiper@LiliCo.nl
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2. Nice to meet you… 15 years in R&D
Industrial Design
Lili.Kuiper@LiliCo.nl
I n n n o v e e e w i mhe tc uksl taonm e n s
I ovat r n t t r

3. Personal evolution
 Design of a User friendly VCR for elderly people
 User interface testing
 Functional requirements
 UI Design
 Future Innovation concepts
 Co-creation / Co-design - elderly people – citizens – blind children
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4. Why develop with end users?
classical  inconsistency between what users say in
response to surveys and their actual behavior
 users are unaware of needs and wishes
 do not possess sufficient innovative visions or
ideas
co-creation / co-design
 users are expert of their experiences
 co-creation offers methods and tools
 innovative visions created by
multidisciplinary team
 uses can help to steer design decisions during
From: Co-creation and the new landscapes of design all development phases
Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders & Pieter Jan Stappers
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5. Involve ≠ Listen
Levels of Participation
Child initiated and directed
Design partner
collect data & initiate ideas Child initiatied,
collaboration during development
and evaluation of prototypes
shared decisions with adults
Adult initiatied,
Informant shared decisions with children
information during development
and evaluation of prototypes Consulted and informed
Assigned and informed
Tester
test prototypes
Tokenism
User Manipulation
test
existing products
Decoration
Participation roles Roger Hart’s participation ladder
[Druin A., 2002, The Role of children in the design of technology] [Hart. R., 1992, Children’s participation from tokenism to citizenship]
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6. How the project started
A game for
blind children?
NO
We want a
game for all!
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7. Challenges for blind children
Blind children can play special audio games,
but other children can not follow the game
There are no games where blind and sighted
children can play on an equal basis
There are not many exercises for blind children
to train their locomotion skills
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8. The Goal
 Game for blind & sighted children
 Play on equal basis
 Improve locomotion skills (Wii- Game)
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9. learning objective / engaging interactive media / game element - persuasive games
Not just a game: a Serious Game
Pain relief Physical therapy Training (surgeons)
Against All Odds
Edutainment Awareness Group process
Attitude change
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10. Approach
Game Facititate
Development Creative Process
Collaborative design
Blind & sighted children
become part of
multidisciplinary team
Blind & sighted
children
Project Stakeholder Project
Locomotion & Blindness Experts Magagement
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11. How to involve all parties?
Co-design with children
Movement Experts / School
Project management
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12. Co-creation steps
create team create ideas evaluate & select build & iterate
 create awareness  experience with
new technology  evaluate and combine ideas experience concept
shared
concepts
 define shared goal  idea creation
 look for mutual ideas  evaluate & optimize
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13. Create team
Selection of participants
• problem owners / lead users experts
• stakeholders (internal / external)
• designers
Motivational aspects
• monetary reward
• intrinsic motivation:
involvement with outcome
• helping others / being involved
• fun to participate
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14. Create team
Analyze relationship with the subject:
• Create awareness of their fun/interesting
gaming experiences and preferences.
Create shared goal:
• experience adventures
• being smart
• learn new things
• makes you laugh
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15. Create ideas
experience with new technology
• play Wii and keep a journal:
• what they like/dislike
• how to make the Wii more suitable
idea creation - assisted
• role playing adventure
• creating world with Lego bricks
and toy animals
• user walk through of the interaction
(Wii Balance Board & Wii-mote)
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16. Evaluate & select
Share intermediate results:
• adopt ideas from others
Present final ideas to group:
• rated
• positive and negative feedback
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17. Shared concepts
Create a list of mutual elements:
 Functional requirements
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18. Build and iterate
Game was simulated in a gym:
• “experience” the basic elements
of the game concept
• audio feedback:
musical instruments or voice
• sighted children had limited
vision glasses
Difficult navigation situations
were “solved” in situ
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19. NB: that was a shortcut….
shared concepts evaluate & select
 Translate raw material:  Getting familiar with all concepts
make it “look real” (persona’s)
 Create clusters based on similar  Format to duplicate evaluation
personal preferences: methodology from designers
describe fictional characters  Give important role to stakeholder
(persona’s)  Selection of most relevant
 Elaborate on solutions for different functionality
characters
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20. Prototype evaluation
1. Navigation and orientation
• First focus: navigation, orientation, audio feedback
• equal challenge for the blind and sighted children
• two different concepts for navigation
2. Fun and game play
• Second focus: design and evaluating
game fun experience and the game play
• Introduction of mini challenges:
• enrich the game experience
• provide specific locomotion exercises
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21. The game
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22. Evaluation of navigation
Children prefer rotation of the
viewing perspective, however:
• blind children tend to lose their
orientation
• less possibilities to train the children’s
balance.
Faster speed for walking backwards
Feedback about the direction of
your own movements.
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23. Evaluation of navigation
Balance and diversity in audio
feedback:
• too much feedback clutters the total
experience.
Create a tutorial level, explain:
• all sounds
• how the controls work
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24. Evaluation of gameplay & fun
More challenging to play and to repeat playing the
game in the future:
• rewards and penalties during the mini challenges
• an overall performance score at the end of a level.
More (funny) interactions:
• Exclamations when you hit the wall
• More interaction with Tyrie
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25. Evaluation of gameplay & fun
More competition - high score listing
• not possible in this version of the Wii platform
More adventurous:
• vary the type of mini-challenges
• make it less predictable which challenge appears where.
Very rewarding that blind children can receive
and give feedback on other players!
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26. Conclusions
Improvement of locomotion needs to be measured
A method was created for longitudinal testing of the improvement
of locomotion skills. This will be implemented in schools for blind
children
It is possible to offer an equal game challenge
for blind and sighted children
Smart combination of audio & visual & tactile feedback
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27. Conclusions
Co-creation works!
• valuable method to develop applications for
children with visual impairment
• many valuable insights and experiences for the developers
– creative input from children throughout the process
• a lot of the final solutions were created by the children
…but needs to be planned
It is possible to adapt methods for special target groups
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28. Questions ?
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29. Traditional research vs co-creation
 Anonymous stakeholders  Tell them who you are
 Do not re-use people  Work with same consumers
over an extended period of time
 Do not explain research purpose  Explain what we are doing and why
 Ask opinions not creativity  Ask creativity and opinions
 Experts interpret meaning  Ask consumers help to understand
the implications
 Respondents do not care  Look for respondents that really care
 No time to go deep  Overcome the superficial:
create relationship and trust
 One dimensional focus  Diverse perspactives provide
the seed of innovation
[Promise, Research 1020 Conference, Sex lies and Chocolate:
How communities can change the way you think about innovation for good]
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30. Questions?
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