Lee Seyeon, Oh Hyunyoung, Shi Chung-Kon, Doh Young Yim
Graduate School of Culture Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
JMIR Serious Games. 2021 May 20;9(2):e24449. doi: 10.2196/24449.
The number of older adult gamers who play mobile games is growing worldwide. Earlier studies have reported that digital games provide cognitive, physical, and socioemotional benefits for older adults. However, current mobile games that understand older adults' gameplay experience and reflect their needs are very scarce. Furthermore, studies that have analyzed older adults' game experience in a holistic manner are rare.
The purpose of this study was to suggest mobile game design guidelines for adults older than 50 years from a holistic gaming experience perspective. Adopting a human-centric approach, this study analyzes middle-aged and older adults' gameplay experience and suggests practical design guides to increase accessibility and satisfaction.
We organized a living laboratory project called the "Intergenerational Play Workshop." In this workshop, 40 middle-aged and older adults (mean age 66.75 years, age range 50-85 years) played commercial mobile games of various genres with young adult partners for 1 month (8 sessions). Using a convergent parallel mixed-method design, we conducted a qualitative analysis of dialogue, game diaries, and behavioral observations during the workshop and a quantitative analysis of the satisfaction level of the game elements for the mobile games that they played.
This project was active from April 2019 to December 2021, and the data were collected at the workshops from July 1 to August 28, 2019. Based on the identified themes of positive and negative experiences from the qualitative data, we proposed 45 design guides under 3 categories: (1) cognitive and physical elements, (2) psychological and socioemotional elements, and (3) consumption contextual elements. Our empirical research could reaffirm the proposals from previous studies and provide new guidelines for improving the game design. In addition, we demonstrate how existing commercial games can be evaluated quantitatively by using the satisfaction level of each game's elements and overall satisfaction level.
The final guidelines were presented to game designers to easily find related information and enhance the overall understanding of the game experience of middle-aged and older adults.
在全球范围内，玩手游的老年玩家数量正在增加。早期研究报告称，数字游戏为老年人带来认知、身体和社会情感方面的益处。然而，目前能够理解老年人游戏体验并反映其需求的手游非常稀少。此外，以整体方式分析老年人游戏体验的研究也很少见。
本研究的目的是从整体游戏体验的角度，为50岁以上的成年人提出手游设计指南。本研究采用以人为本的方法，分析了中老年成年人的游戏体验，并提出了切实可行的设计指南，以提高游戏的可及性和满意度。
我们组织了一个名为“代际游戏工作坊”的生活实验室项目。在这个工作坊中，40名中老年成年人（平均年龄66.75岁，年龄范围50 - 85岁）与年轻成年伙伴一起玩了1个月（8节课程）各种类型的商业手游。采用收敛平行混合方法设计，我们对工作坊期间的对话、游戏日记和行为观察进行了定性分析，并对他们所玩手游的游戏元素满意度进行了定量分析。
该项目于2019年4月至2021年12月开展，数据于2019年7月1日至8月28日在工作坊收集。基于从定性数据中确定的正面和负面体验主题，我们在3个类别下提出了45条设计指南：（1）认知和身体元素，（2）心理和社会情感元素，（3）消费情境元素。我们的实证研究可以再次确认先前研究的提议，并为改进游戏设计提供新的指南。此外，我们展示了如何通过使用每个游戏元素的满意度水平和总体满意度水平来定量评估现有商业游戏。
最终指南已提交给游戏设计师，以便他们轻松找到相关信息，并增强对中老年成年人游戏体验的整体理解。
