A Tutorial for an Interactive Narrative Simulation for Alzheimer’s Disease’s Caregivers: Development and Evaluation

Abstract

Alzheimer Care Trainer (ACT) is an interactive narrative simulation for caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. It aims to support family caregivers by letting them practice difficult situations of daily life in a training environment. In order to ensure its accessibility to its target audience, which may be unfamiliar with new technologies, we have created a tutorial. The aim of the tutorial is to teach users the main mechanics of the simulation. Considered to be an introductory level to ACT, it is built in 2 parts, a dirigiste first part and an exploratory, second part. Several tutorial elements, such as context-sensitive information or a help page, have been integrated. The evaluation of the tutorial by 14 participants revealed that interaction mechanics were well understood although the state of the visual element remains confusing. Generated positive affects were stronger than the negative ones and most of the participants were confident to play the game after the tutorial. Ensuring accessibility to all populations is essential especially when targeting seniors. A well-conceived tutorial has the potential to familiarize users with our intervention, reducing the risk of excluding people that could benefit from it.