Towards Design Patterns for Augmented Reality Serious Games

Abstract

Abstract. For professional workers today, keeping up with knowledge and the continuous technology progress is challenging. Increased innovation speed and dynamic work situations shorten preparation times for new tasks significantly. Traditional professional training approaches preparing employees for new tasks are becoming inappropriate. Thus new educational means are needed. These would help employees get acquainted with new situations faster and more efficiently. According to learning theories such as action learning and situated learning, which embed the learning process in the application context and challenge the learner to be actively involved help to improve the learning process. These theories are the basis for mobile learning and serious games. From research in Serious Games we know that games have the potential to actively involve learners and to immerse them in a learning situation and increase their engagement. With Augmented Reality (AR) and wearable devices a new generation of tools and applications becomes available, which inherently are mobile, contextualized and personalized. First successful application scenarios show the potential of these new technologies for education and training. While the application of game-design patterns to learning processes help to systematically design learning games supporting specific learning outcomes, an empirically tested, systematic approach towards the design of AR-based learning solutions is still missing. Based on the state of the art in AR research and in applying design patterns for serious games, we consequently propose a research methodology to apply game design patterns to augmented reality-based learning games for the training of professionals in dynamic situations.

The Flipped MOOC: Using Gamification and Learning Analytics in MOOC Design—A Conceptual Approach

“…The set of expert studies we conducted confirm our view that gamification concepts should also support intrinsic motivational factors, engagement, community-building and personalization. In line with previous results [37,[41][42][43][44][45], the designs created by our participants indicate that gamification can be helpful in education only if it is carefully selected and designed chosen according to the application scenario at hand (problem to be solved/addressed, target group, topic, domain, content).…”

Gamification in MOOCs to enhance users' goal achievement

“…"The Design Patterns is a method of codifying design knowledge in separate but interrelated parts and has been used to describe game elements related to interaction" [45].…”

Design Patterns for Augmented Reality Learning Games

“…Knowledge about how to best approach the design of AR games is still lacking [16], a sentiment [25] shares: "Little is known on how to systematically apply gamedesign patterns to augmented reality". Similarly to these, [24] attempts to extrapolate design guidelines from the AR game Dino Dig, which despite having educational content was primarily intended to entertain.…”

“…A short, preliminary list of patterns "which take advantage of AR potential" comprising names and short descriptions consists of: Localization, video recording and view sharing, synchronous communication, contextualization, and object recognition [25]. There are still challenges for AR to overcome, which inform the framework for interactions in AR in the remainder of this paper, applying a pattern approach, incorporating elements from the various sources discussed above, while adhering to the general characteristics laid out by [26].…”

“…The framework and the software development are based on design patterns, which we defined according to the various approaches presented above [14,16,[25][26][27][28]. Technologically, we build on the comparison of available AR systems and sensors performed by [32].…”