A guide for making video games accessible to users with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Video games were initially considered as a form of entertainment. Today this perception has changed. Many video games have been designed for a wide range of purposes: education, rehabilitation, etc. This paper presents our experience developing video games in collaboration with an association of users with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is characterized by a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation. This means that people affected by this disease are unable to handle the usual devices used in video games. Moreover, video games offer these people a form of leisure that can also benefit them in many ways: autonomy, strength, coordination, self-confidence, learning from error, etc. Three adapted video games have been developed as well as a guide for designing accesible video games for people with cerebral palsy. This experience has served to study and design new ways of making video games accessible to disabled people, giving them the chance to exercise their right to entertainment.

Design recommendations under the Self-determination theory: Analyzing some systems and their implication to self-esteem

“…As expected, due to the nature of most studies (social media analysis), traditional Guide User Interface (GUI) interaction was the most adopted (e.g. Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;Lee & Jang, 2010b;Thieme et al, 2015;. However, we notice that the studies that sought to make technology more accessible and used new means of interaction, are those that provided more natural and diverse interactions (e.g.…”

“…Analyzing the application domain, most of the papers focused on the impact of social media on the users' self-esteem; most of them analyzed how Facebook influences users (Faelens et al, 2019;Schneider et al, 20172012;Scissors et al, 2016;Zell & Moeller, 2018). Some papers also discuss how entertainment (games, for instance) also acts on the psychological aspects of users Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;Gerlinget al, 2014;Muriana et al, 2019;Thieme et al, 2015). Although to a lesser extent, there are papers focused on the design of technologies to engage users in therapy Schrammel et al, 2014;Thieme et al, 2015), others that study the relationship of technology and school performance , and still others that discuss how technology can motivate users in their daily lives .…”

“…It is worth noting that ubiquitous technology seems more entertainment oriented. The paper that addresses video game usage (Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019) discusses how making it accessible can affect self-esteem as well. Finally, the studies that adopted the use of TV , and Computer do not discuss why these technologies impact selfesteem; the discussion was focusing on the features of the applications and systems developed.…”

“…However, we notice that the studies that sought to make technology more accessible and used new means of interaction, are those that provided more natural and diverse interactions (e.g. (Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;.…”

Interactive and collaborative technological ecosystems for improving academic motivation and engagement

“…The proposal of Compañ-Rosique et al [77] has served to study and design new ways of making video games accessible to disabled people, giving them the chance to exercise their right to entertainment. Starting from the idea that video games were initially a form of entertainment, today this perception has changed, and many video games have been designed for a wide range of purposes including education, rehabilitation, etc.…”