Assistive HCI-Serious Games Co-design Insights: The Case Study of i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite for Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games (HCI-SGs). When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite (PGS) (www.i-prognosis.eu) holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis.

Development and Co-design of NeuroOrb: A Novel “Serious Gaming” System Targeting Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease

“…In PD specifically, co-design has been used to design eHealth services ( Revenas et al, 2018 ), collaborative care ( Kessler et al, 2019 ), and even smart home technology ( Bourazeri and Stumpf, 2018 ). Most recently, and highly relevant to the current work, co-design was used to put forth recommendations for the design of a personalized gaming suite for use by individuals with PD ( Dias et al, 2020 ). Within the current study, without consultation with key stakeholders in a reiterative co-design process, many of the issues we identified would have been missed.…”

Users' Perspective on the AI-Based Smartphone PROTEIN App for Personalized Nutrition and Healthy Living: A Modified Technology Acceptance Model (mTAM) Approach

“…This capability provides automated food volume estimation from just a single food image ( 82 ), facilitating the data input to the PROTEIN app and contributing toward the development of an accurate dietary assistant application. PROTEIN app acknowledges the effectiveness of health-related games to engage users in dealing with their health ( 83 , 84 ) and informing them about deterioration of symptoms in diseases ( 85 ), and thus, it also incorporates different dietary games. In this way, PROTEIN app fosters adherence to the suggested plans, making the app fun to use, and providing the means for encouragement and/or (re)education on nutritional value of the various food groups toward the adoption of a healthy and balanced diet.…”

Machine Learning-Based Analysis of Digital Movement Assessment and ExerGame Scores for Parkinson's Disease Severity Estimation

“…The adopted i-PROGNOSIS PGS platform consists of PD-related SGs (Dias et al, 2021) that refer to exercise ("ExerGames, ") diet ("DietaryGames, ") emotions ("EmoGames, ") and voice ("VoiceGames") (Figure 1). These SGs are co-designed by various stakeholders that relate to PD (e.g., patients with PD/older adults, physicians, carers, technology developers, and healthcare policy makers), in order to holistically address the needs of patients with PD and assist them in coping with the PD symptoms in their everyday living.…”