These slides were presented at ICLCity2013 http://www.city.ac.uk/centre-for-creativity-in-professional-practice/services/icl-city-2013

1. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Brainstorming & Other Crimes:
A Detective Game to Support Creativity in
Dementia Care
Anja Sisarica, PhD student @ Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice
Supervised by Neil Maiden & Julienne Meyer
13th
May, ICLCity 2013

2. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
What’s on the menu today?
• Motivation behind this project
• Iterative design & playtesting of Hazel Court game to support creative
game-based learning in dementia care
• Future prospects & expected contribution

3. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Emerging opportunities
Creative problem
solving
Serious games
Playing creatively
= Increase in innovation, flow, fun, self-organisation?
Creating playfully
Making decisions: analysis
and prioritization when there
is no single exact correct
solution.
Developing and
designing new
applications, ideas,
relationships, systems
or products.

4. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Dimensions of a creative climate Interpretation in SGs
CHALLENGE
“The learner gets ample opportunity to operate
within, but at the outer edge, of his or her
resources, so that [...] things are felt as
challenging but not ‘undoable’” [Gee, 2003]
FREEDOM
“People genuinely feel they have something
individual to them that they can shape”
[Chatfield, 2010]
TRUST & SAFETY
“Opportunities to try out hypotheses and to fail in
a safe place” [McGonigal, 2011]
IDEA-SUPPORT
“Performance feedback should be presented in
a way that minimizes the possibility of damage
to one’s self-esteem” [Malone, 1981]
HUMOR & PLAYFULNESS
“Smoothing and sustaining game mechanisms,
enhancing communication, learning and social
presence, making it richer and more fun”
[Dormann, 2009]
PERSISTENCE
“…with a persistent environment, when you go
back in, it remembers where you were before:
the assets and marks you created, your
achievements; there is a kind of mirror image of
the real world you can create for yourself”
[Chatfield, 2010]

5. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
How could variations of creativity support and game
design influence creative and learning outcomes?

6. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Why do we need CGBL in dementia care?
• Create opportunities for new engagements, by bringing new sensory
experiences with technology-supported game environment;
• Employ creativity techniques to open up space to be reflective and
support emotional care planning;
• Use game as a training tool to open up innovative ways of
communicating;
• Encourage curiosity and appreciative enquiry;
• Provide a context for positive creative climate changes.
MAINTAINING
IDENTITY
SHARING DECISION-MAKING
CREATING COMMUNITY
[My Home Life evidence-
based themes of best care
practice]

7. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Care staff sometimes need to act as ‘detectives’
to reveal reasons that lie behind peculiar
situations (February, 2012)
Diverse sources of
information to cross-
reference: resident’s
Care Plan, notes,
statements from other
carers, nurses, residents,
family members
Accurate, relevant,
timely, complete
information?
Non-deterministic, fast-paced,
complex domain that requires
flexibility and an open-mind

8. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Pre-design pilot (July 2012)
Game environment should be a
combination of physical and
digital elements, boardgame
and video game.
Level of
detective/mystery
analogy should be
‘lighter’, semantically
closer to problem
domain than previously
thought.
Players seem to appreciate the digital
interactive elements, while still
preferring to be working together, face
to face, instead of in competition.

9. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
So, what do you do in Hazel Court?
• Phase 1: Clue collection, rooms exploration & meeting the characters
• Phase 2: Idea generation:
• Brainstorming technique for exploratory creativity to support
the generation of ideas about improving care
• Random combinations technique for combinational creativity
to combine ideas generated by different people during the
brainstorming
• Excursion technique for transformational creativity to support
the generation of ideas by viewing the world from different
perspectives through role-play

10. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Paper-based prototype playtesting (October 2012)
Theme Example
recorded
observation
Action it
suggests
USABILITY &
PLAYER
EXPERIENCE
The players
have been
talking to each
over the board.
Make the digital
game horizontal to
keep the
communication.
CONTENTS Players were
confused with
the meaning of
G2.
Connect contents
of clues (objects) in
G2 with the main
storyline.
APROPRIATENESS
OF CHOSEN
CREATIVITY
TECHNIQUES
Explicit support
to combinational
creativity was
not clear without
additional
explanation.
Integrate
facilitation more
clearly, think
about adding
more prompts.

11. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity

12. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Digitally-supported prototype
playtesting (January 2013)
- lessons learned
• Creativity techniques integrated in
the game need to be further adjusted
to favourise novelty over usefulness
of generated ideas, as that seems to
be the biggest milestone for carers’
task-oriented mindset
• Explore further the mutual impact
between creative climate and game
mechanics for motivated learning and
reflection
• Explore further the means of digital
support to the physical creative
process

13. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
What does the future hold?
• Could creative game-based learning guide development of new
pervasive software systems?
• Are creative serious games a new “genre” of serious games?
• How can we come up with new modes of technology-supported
creativity facilitation integrated in games?
• What could other application domains for CGBL be?

14. Centre for HCI Design
Centre for Creativity
Thank you for attention!
Stay in touch:
anja.sisarica.1@city.ac.uk
@anjasisarica @creativity_city