The effects of embodied persuasive games on player attitudes toward people using wheelchairs

Abstract

People using wheelchairs face barriers in their daily lives, many of which are created by people who surround them. Promoting positive attitudes towards persons with disabilities is an integral step in removing these barriers and improving their quality of life. In this context, persuasive games offer an opportunity of encouraging attitude change. We created a wheelchair-controlled persuasive game to study how embodied interaction can be applied to influence player attitudes over time. Our results show that the game intervention successfully raised awareness for challenges that people using wheelchairs face, and that embodied interaction is a more effective approach than traditional input in terms of retaining attitude change over time. Based on these findings, we provide design strategies for embodied interaction in persuasive games, and outline how our findings can be leveraged to help designers create effective persuasive experiences beyond games.

Play to win over: Effects of persuasive games.

“…Because of the variety of messages that persuasive games aim to spread, it is important to work towards a methodology that allows for robustly detecting small effects on attitude sets unique to each game (All, Nuñez Castellar, & Van Looy, 2016). Regardless of whether an absolute effect still needs to be established in the first place (through a no-treatment control) or if an effect is incremental and found through comparisons with competing persuasive media (Soekarjo & Oostendorp, 2015), future research should combine diverse methods such as implicit attitude tests with qualitative interviews (Gerling et al, 2014) as well as solidify scale-based testing. The latter is done through the application of pre-validated scales wherever possible (Ruggiero, 2015), though such measures would have to be selected to match the game's message closely.…”

“…When the game Power Explorer challenged teenagers to turn off electrical equipment in their homes in order to win multiplayer battles, attitudes towards domestic energy saving became more positive for players while the opposite was found for non-players for the same time period (Gustafsson, Bång, & Svahn, 2009). More recently, Gerling et al (2014) researched how playing a game about disabilities (Birthday Party) influenced relevant attitudes, finding a more powerful influence when the game was played with a specialized wheelchair-based input device. Lastly, Ruggiero (2014Ruggiero ( , 2015 investigated attitudes towards homelessness in over 5,000 teenaged players of the game Spent in what is very likely the largest study on the effects of a persuasive game.…”

“…Despite the proliferation of the genre and the notability of games like September 12 th and Darfur is Dying, only a handful of researchers have paid attention to attitude-changing effects of persuasive games (e.g. Gerling, Mandryk, Birk, Miller, & Orji, 2014;Peng, Lee, & Heeter, 2010;Ruggiero, 2015;Soekarjo & Oostendorp, 2015). This is because most research on this topic did not categorize persuasive games as a distinct genre.…”

A Comprehensive Review of Smart Wheelchairs: Past, Present, and Future

“…Challenges to safe, independent wheelchair use can result from various overlapping physical, perceptual, or cognitive symptoms of diagnoses such as spinal cord injury, cerebrovascular accident, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and cerebral palsy. Persons with different symptom combinations can benefit from different types of assistance from a SW and different wheelchair form factors [69], [137], [138]. Manual and powered wheelchairs are standard approaches to address such impairments, but these technologies are unsuitable for many users [139].…”

Games for Empathy for Sensitive Social Groups

“…On the way, the player has to stop at different locations to pick up items for the party, but the player is running late, so completing all tasks quickly is important. The game evokes empathy and a positive attitude regarding people with disabilities [13].…”