Skip to main content

Towards Universal Game Development in Education

Automatic and Semiautomatic Methodologies

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7558))

Abstract

Serious games are increasingly being used in education to support the development of skills that future professionals and citizens require. However, the inclusion of games in the curricula can threaten the universal right to education for students with disabilities if they are not designed to be accessible. In this paper we discuss the need for tools that assist educators and educational content providers in producing games that are equally accessible for all. The goal is to minimize the cost and effort needed for introducing accessibility in serious games. We discuss to what extent the process of making a serious game accessible can be automated and supported by software tools that minimize human intervention. We conclude that there is a set of common accessibility barriers, especially those related to interaction and physical disabilities, that can be addressed systematically in a high proportion and therefore could be dealt with by software. Other problems, especially those more close to structure, storyboard and design, still need direct intervention from the game authors, but could be facilitated with appropriate methodologies and auditing tools.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Johnson, L., Adams, S., Cummins, M.: NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition. The New Media Consortium, Austin (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bierre, K., Chetwynd, J., Ellis, B., Hinn, D.M., Ludi, S., Westin, T.: Game Not Over: Accessibility Issues in Video Games. In: 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2005). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Gee, J.: Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies). Peter Lang Publishing (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Atkinson, M.T., Lawrence, A.E.: Making the mainstream accessible: redefining the game. In: Sandbox Symposium 2006, ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Videogames, Boston, Massachusetts, pp. 21–28 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Allman, T., Dhillon, R.K., Landau, M.A.E., Kurniawan, S.H.: Rock Vibe: Rock Band® computer games for people with no or limited vision. In: Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 51–58. ACM (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Yuan, B., Folmer, E.: Blind hero: enabling guitar hero for the visually impaired. In: Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 169–176. ACM (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Savidis, A., Stamou, A., Stephanidis, C.: An Accessible Multimodal Pong Game Space. In: Stephanidis, C., Pieper, M. (eds.) ERCIM UI4ALL Ws 2006. LNCS, vol. 4397, pp. 405–418. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Gutschmidt, R., Schiewe, M., Zinke, F.: Haptic Emulation of Games: Haptic Sudoku for the Blind. In: PETRA 2010 Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, Samos, Greece (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Westin, T.: Game accessibility case study: Terraformers – a real-time 3D graphic game. Presented at the (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Friberg, J., Gärdenfors, D.: Audio Games: New perspectives on game audio. In: ACM SIGCHI International Conference 2004, Singapore (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Westin, T., Bierre, K., Gramenos, D., Hinn, M.: Advances in Game Accessibility from 2005 to 2010. In: Stephanidis, C. (ed.) HCII 2011 and UAHCI 2011, Part II. LNCS, vol. 6766, pp. 400–409. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Savidis, C., Stephanidis, A.: Unified User Interface Design: Designing Universally Accessible Interactions. International Journal of Interacting with Computers 16, 243–270 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Torrente, J., Del Blanco, Á., Marchiori, E.J., Moreno-Ger, P., Fernández-Manjón, B.: <e-Adventure>: Introducing Educational Games in the Learning Process. In: IEEE Education Engineering (EDUCON) 2010 Conference, pp. 1121–1126. IEEE, Madrid (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Moreno-Ger, P., Burgos, D., Sierra, J.L., Fernández-Manjón, B.: Educational Game Design for Online Education. Computers in Human Behavior 24, 2530–2540 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Dickey, M.D.: Game Design Narrative for Learning: Appropriating Adventure Game Design Narrative Devices and Techniques for the Design of Interactive Learning Environments. Educational Technology Research and Development 54, 245–263 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Torrente, J., Moreno-Ger, P., Fernández-Manjón, B., Sierra, J.L.: Instructor-oriented Authoring Tools for Educational Videogames. In: 8th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2008), pp. 516–518. IEEE, Santander (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Torrente, J., Vallejo-Pinto, J.Á., Moreno-Ger, P., Fernández-Manjón, B.: Introducing Accessibility Features in an Educational Game Authoring Tool: The Experience. In: 11th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies ICALT 2011, pp. 341–343. IEEE (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Torrente, J., Del Blanco, Á., Moreno-Ger, P., Martínez-Ortiz, I., Fernández-Manjón, B.: Implementing Accessibility in Educational Videogames with <e-Adventure>. In: First ACM International Workshop on Multimedia Technologies for Distance Learning, MTDL 2009, pp. 55–67. ACM Press, Beijing (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  19. W3C: Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, 2.0 (2012), http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Torrente, J., del Blanco, Á., Serrano-Laguna, Á., Vallejo-Pinto, J.Á., Moreno-Ger, P., Fernández-Manjón, B. (2012). Towards Universal Game Development in Education. In: Popescu, E., Li, Q., Klamma, R., Leung, H., Specht, M. (eds) Advances in Web-Based Learning - ICWL 2012. ICWL 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7558. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33642-3_17

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33642-3_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33641-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33642-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics