1. Co-design of a (Wii) game
for the blind and sighted
Liliane Kuiper-Hoyng
Lili.Kuiper@LiliCo.nl
Innoveren met klanten
2. Nice to meet you… 15 years in R&D
Industrial Design
Lili.Kuiper@LiliCo.nl
I n n n o v e e e w i mhe tc uksl taonm e n s
I ovat r n t t r
3. Personal evolution
Design of a User friendly VCR for elderly people
User interface testing
Functional requirements
UI Design
Future Innovation concepts
Co-creation / Co-design - elderly people – citizens – blind children
Innovate with customers
4. Why develop with end users?
classical inconsistency between what users say in
response to surveys and their actual behavior
users are unaware of needs and wishes
do not possess sufficient innovative visions or
ideas
co-creation / co-design
users are expert of their experiences
co-creation offers methods and tools
innovative visions created by
multidisciplinary team
uses can help to steer design decisions during
From: Co-creation and the new landscapes of design all development phases
Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders & Pieter Jan Stappers
Innovate with customers
5. Involve ≠ Listen
Levels of Participation
Child initiated and directed
Design partner
collect data & initiate ideas Child initiatied,
collaboration during development
and evaluation of prototypes
shared decisions with adults
Adult initiatied,
Informant shared decisions with children
information during development
and evaluation of prototypes Consulted and informed
Assigned and informed
Tester
test prototypes
Tokenism
User Manipulation
test
existing products
Decoration
Participation roles Roger Hart’s participation ladder
[Druin A., 2002, The Role of children in the design of technology] [Hart. R., 1992, Children’s participation from tokenism to citizenship]
Innovate with customers
6. How the project started
A game for
blind children?
NO
We want a
game for all!
Innovate with customers
7. Challenges for blind children
Blind children can play special audio games,
but other children can not follow the game
There are no games where blind and sighted
children can play on an equal basis
There are not many exercises for blind children
to train their locomotion skills
Innovate with customers
8. The Goal
Game for blind & sighted children
Play on equal basis
Improve locomotion skills (Wii- Game)
Innovate with customers
9. learning objective / engaging interactive media / game element - persuasive games
Not just a game: a Serious Game
Pain relief Physical therapy Training (surgeons)
Against All Odds
Edutainment Awareness Group process
Attitude change
Innovate with customers
10. Approach
Game Facititate
Development Creative Process
Collaborative design
Blind & sighted children
become part of
multidisciplinary team
Blind & sighted
children
Project Stakeholder Project
Locomotion & Blindness Experts Magagement
Innovate with customers
11. How to involve all parties?
Co-design with children
Movement Experts / School
Project management
Innovate with customers
12. Co-creation steps
create team create ideas evaluate & select build & iterate
create awareness experience with
new technology evaluate and combine ideas experience concept
shared
concepts
define shared goal idea creation
look for mutual ideas evaluate & optimize
Innovate with customers
13. Create team
Selection of participants
• problem owners / lead users experts
• stakeholders (internal / external)
• designers
Motivational aspects
• monetary reward
• intrinsic motivation:
involvement with outcome
• helping others / being involved
• fun to participate
Innovate with customers
14. Create team
Analyze relationship with the subject:
• Create awareness of their fun/interesting
gaming experiences and preferences.
Create shared goal:
• experience adventures
• being smart
• learn new things
• makes you laugh
Innovate with customers
15. Create ideas
experience with new technology
• play Wii and keep a journal:
• what they like/dislike
• how to make the Wii more suitable
idea creation - assisted
• role playing adventure
• creating world with Lego bricks
and toy animals
• user walk through of the interaction
(Wii Balance Board & Wii-mote)
Innovate with customers
16. Evaluate & select
Share intermediate results:
• adopt ideas from others
Present final ideas to group:
• rated
• positive and negative feedback
Innovate with customers
17. Shared concepts
Create a list of mutual elements:
Functional requirements
Innovate with customers
18. Build and iterate
Game was simulated in a gym:
• “experience” the basic elements
of the game concept
• audio feedback:
musical instruments or voice
• sighted children had limited
vision glasses
Difficult navigation situations
were “solved” in situ
Innovate with customers
19. NB: that was a shortcut….
shared concepts evaluate & select
Translate raw material: Getting familiar with all concepts
make it “look real” (persona’s)
Create clusters based on similar Format to duplicate evaluation
personal preferences: methodology from designers
describe fictional characters Give important role to stakeholder
(persona’s) Selection of most relevant
Elaborate on solutions for different functionality
characters
Innovate with customers
20. Prototype evaluation
1. Navigation and orientation
• First focus: navigation, orientation, audio feedback
• equal challenge for the blind and sighted children
• two different concepts for navigation
2. Fun and game play
• Second focus: design and evaluating
game fun experience and the game play
• Introduction of mini challenges:
• enrich the game experience
• provide specific locomotion exercises
Innovate with customers
22. Evaluation of navigation
Children prefer rotation of the
viewing perspective, however:
• blind children tend to lose their
orientation
• less possibilities to train the children’s
balance.
Faster speed for walking backwards
Feedback about the direction of
your own movements.
Innovate with customers
23. Evaluation of navigation
Balance and diversity in audio
feedback:
• too much feedback clutters the total
experience.
Create a tutorial level, explain:
• all sounds
• how the controls work
Innovate with customers
24. Evaluation of gameplay & fun
More challenging to play and to repeat playing the
game in the future:
• rewards and penalties during the mini challenges
• an overall performance score at the end of a level.
More (funny) interactions:
• Exclamations when you hit the wall
• More interaction with Tyrie
Innovate with customers
25. Evaluation of gameplay & fun
More competition - high score listing
• not possible in this version of the Wii platform
More adventurous:
• vary the type of mini-challenges
• make it less predictable which challenge appears where.
Very rewarding that blind children can receive
and give feedback on other players!
Innovate with customers
26. Conclusions
Improvement of locomotion needs to be measured
A method was created for longitudinal testing of the improvement
of locomotion skills. This will be implemented in schools for blind
children
It is possible to offer an equal game challenge
for blind and sighted children
Smart combination of audio & visual & tactile feedback
Innovate with customers
27. Conclusions
Co-creation works!
• valuable method to develop applications for
children with visual impairment
• many valuable insights and experiences for the developers
– creative input from children throughout the process
• a lot of the final solutions were created by the children
…but needs to be planned
It is possible to adapt methods for special target groups
Innovate with customers
29. Traditional research vs co-creation
Anonymous stakeholders Tell them who you are
Do not re-use people Work with same consumers
over an extended period of time
Do not explain research purpose Explain what we are doing and why
Ask opinions not creativity Ask creativity and opinions
Experts interpret meaning Ask consumers help to understand
the implications
Respondents do not care Look for respondents that really care
No time to go deep Overcome the superficial:
create relationship and trust
One dimensional focus Diverse perspactives provide
the seed of innovation
[Promise, Research 1020 Conference, Sex lies and Chocolate:
How communities can change the way you think about innovation for good]
Innovate with customers