Requirements for an Architecture of a Generic Health Game Data Management System.

Abstract

Often, logging data while playing a game-based health application is of specific interest, not only to the players themselves, but equally to therapists, health counselors, coaches, researchers, etc. Therefore, designing and developing a health game on its own is not enough; one also needs to foresee a health game data management system (DMS). In this paper we present eight requirements for a ‘generic’ health game DMS. We will start by discussing the diversity and similarity between four different health games and their data. After the analysis of the games and data, we will present a final set of requirements that need to be addressed when building a health game DMS: data-centralization, data-synchronization, data integrity, role-based access, accountability, a generic data structure, UI flexibility and development extensibility. We hope that these requirements can inform health game professionals when designing their own DMS.