TY - JOUR
T1 - A usability study of a serious game in cognitive rehabilitation
T2 - A compensatory navigation training in acquired brain injury patients
AU - van der Kuil, Milan N.A.
AU - Visser-Meily, Johanna M.A.
AU - Evers, Andrea W.M.
AU - van der Ham, Ineke J.M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 van der Kuil, Visser-Meily, Evers and van der Ham.
PY - 2018/6/5
Y1 - 2018/6/5
N2 - Acquired brain injury patients often report navigation impairments. A cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been designed in the form of a serious game. The aim of the serious game is to aid patients in the development of compensatory navigation strategies by providing exercises in 3D virtual environments on their home computers. The objective of this study was to assess the usability of three critical gaming attributes: movement control in 3D virtual environments, instruction modality and feedback timing. Thirty acquired brain injury patients performed three tasks in which objective measures of usability were obtained. Mouse controlled movement was compared to keyboard controlled movement in a navigation task. Text-based instructions were compared to video-based instructions in a knowledge acquisition task. The effect of feedback timing on performance and motivation was examined in a navigation training game. Subjective usability ratings of all design options were assessed using questionnaires. Results showed that mouse controlled interaction in 3D environments is more effective than keyboard controlled interaction. Patients clearly preferred video-based instructions over text-based instructions, even though video-based instructions were not more effective in context of knowledge acquisition and comprehension. No effect of feedback timing was found on performance and motivation in games designed to train navigation abilities. Overall appreciation of the serious game was positive. The results provide valuable insights in the design choices that facilitate the transfer of skills from serious games to real-life situations.
AB - Acquired brain injury patients often report navigation impairments. A cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been designed in the form of a serious game. The aim of the serious game is to aid patients in the development of compensatory navigation strategies by providing exercises in 3D virtual environments on their home computers. The objective of this study was to assess the usability of three critical gaming attributes: movement control in 3D virtual environments, instruction modality and feedback timing. Thirty acquired brain injury patients performed three tasks in which objective measures of usability were obtained. Mouse controlled movement was compared to keyboard controlled movement in a navigation task. Text-based instructions were compared to video-based instructions in a knowledge acquisition task. The effect of feedback timing on performance and motivation was examined in a navigation training game. Subjective usability ratings of all design options were assessed using questionnaires. Results showed that mouse controlled interaction in 3D environments is more effective than keyboard controlled interaction. Patients clearly preferred video-based instructions over text-based instructions, even though video-based instructions were not more effective in context of knowledge acquisition and comprehension. No effect of feedback timing was found on performance and motivation in games designed to train navigation abilities. Overall appreciation of the serious game was positive. The results provide valuable insights in the design choices that facilitate the transfer of skills from serious games to real-life situations.
KW - Acquired brain injury
KW - Cognitive training
KW - Rehabilitation
KW - Serious game
KW - Spatial navigation
KW - Usability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048142698&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00846
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00846
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85048142698
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 9
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
IS - JUN
M1 - 846
ER -