- Today.
So hopefully you're able to understand me.
I'll try not to sniff too much
but I can't promise anything.
So, good afternoon everyone.
My name's Kieran Hicks.
I'm here today to present some work we conducted
on designing movement-based play with young people
using powered wheelchairs.
I worked as an RA on this project
alongside with Kathrin Gerling,
Michael Kalyn,
Adam Evans and Conor Linehan.
So, the motivation for our work
was that young people with mobility impairments
generally have limited opportunity
to engage in physically stimulating play.
If you think about playgrounds in your area
or many sports facilities,
while there has obviously been some improvements
in the last few years,
but especially in the U.K.,
there are many places that remain inaccessible
and it makes it really hard for young people
who do use powered wheelchairs
to engage in playful physical activity.
So, at the same time, we know from previous research
that movement-based games are a good way
of providing additional opportunities
for physical activity and play
and they can be leveraged to engage diverse audiences
but we don't really know much about the potential
for young people using powered wheelchairs.
For example, how the games need to be designed
to accommodate players who don't engage
for the sake of physical exertion
but more for a physical experience
and what value movement-based play
for young people who use powered wheelchairs.
So, to answer these questions
we set out to work with St. Francis,
which is a local school that provides education
for young people with special needs.
They cater to a range of ages and abilities,
including different cognitive and mobility impairments.
We worked with teenagers and young adults
who use powered wheelchairs every day
to try and figure out their thoughts
on movement-based play and to design a set
of movement-based games alongside them.
So, our project was three main stages.
First, we established a participatory design process
at the school during which
we held a number of design sessions
and invited young people to explore their opinions
around games, movement and perspectives on themselves.
Second, we built on these results.
These sessions developed three movement-based,
wheelchair-controlled games
that would allow the participants
to experience different forms
of movement-based play.
And finally, we brought the games back
to the school place to test
and I'd like to talk about four case studies
that we chose to illustrate the challenges
and opportunities that come with movement-based play
for young people who use powered wheelchairs.
But first, let me tell you about the development process.
So, during the participatory design process,
we worked with two groups and a total of nine young people
between the ages of 13 and 22.
All the participants used powered wheelchairs
and six participants also had cognitive
or sensory impairments.
Everyone had played video games before
and most of the groups were familiar
with movement-based games,
although usually not from personal experience.
We designed a total of four themed sessions,
each exploring a different theme around the games,
powered wheelchairs and movement-based play,
and over the four months we hosted a total of nine sessions,
including some repeat and catch-up sessions.
So, the first session was
to explore general design requirements
and identify generally desirable game themes.
So, in the first session we didn't want players
to think too much about anything wheelchair related
and so instead kept
to general game-related discussion prompts.
However, we quickly found the individual player abilities
were closely tied in
with the participant's experiences with the games.
For example, one participant explained
how playing games using traditional controllers
took a lot of strength
and that she preferred using a head switch instead.
In terms of preferences, one participant commented
on restrictions that were imposed on them by their parents
and by the staff at the school.
So, they weren't allowed to play gory games, for example,
but then also pointed out
that the shorter playing experiences
were generally easier to engage with.
When we asked them about game themes,
sports-style games frequently came up
and general discussion around mechanics
showed a strong interest in competition
but some concerns around balancing
if players did have different abilities.
In the second session, we applied techniques
in visual sociology to create drawings of the participants
to explore how they viewed themselves
and how they would like to be represented in games
and what the implications
for wheelchair controlled play were.
Perhaps most interestingly was the participants
were torn about the inclusion of disability in games.
While they considered the wheelchairs as part of themselves,
they expressed a desire for avatars
that actually represented their personal situation,
but they also expressed concerns and worries
over how that could affect the avatar's in-game abilities.
So, in the third session, we introduced a stronger focus
on game interaction to get some more insights
into the requirements for movement-based play.
We discussed different input options with the participants
and found that some of them struggled
with traditional game input devices
and everyone expressed a strong desire
for interaction paradigms
that facilitated their independence,
and they want them to be easy to learn.
So, when discussing the wheelchair-based game input,
participants were excited about an input option
that wouldn't require much learning from them.
One participant in fact pointed out
they're already experts at driving wheelchairs,
why can't they use that to play?
So, from these sessions we derived a set
of design considerations
that are explained in more detail in the paper
but I will give a quick overview.
So, for genres and themes,
they wanted quick, short play sessions
that related to the real world.
For game elements and features we focused
on empowering integration of representation of disabilities.
And then for like game controls, we have to kind of
account for an extremely wide range of abilities
based on the wheelchair control.
So, one way of building on these implications,
along with the game themes proposed by the participants,
we created three high level game concepts
and returned to St. Francis for further discussion.
In the final session, we discussed a total
of six game concepts together with the participants:
a rock climbing game,
a boxing game,
a Pac-Man clone,
a skiing game,
and a sensory experience without goals
but with rich auditory and visual feedback.
And based on these participant's preferences,
three game concepts were selected for development
which was a boxing game, a skiing game
and a sensory experience.
So, then we had to make the games.
All games were made in unity
and we used an extended version of Connect Wheels
to integrate wheelchair movement.
We had to adapt the technology slightly
to accommodate wheelchair users who have little
or no control over upper body movement.
So, little video of the first game,
it's called Speed Slope
and the game, basically the player controls a skiier
going down a slope
and the wheelchair controls for this game
is turning left and right
turns the avatar left and right in the game.
It's slightly goal-orientated
with the red rings they can go through
but there's no penalty if they don't go through the rings.
The second game we made was Rumble Robots,
which was the boxing-style game
the participants expressed interest in
where the player takes the role of a robot boxer
with the goal being to knock out the opposing robot.
The controls were fairly similar in this game
with left and right corresponding
to the robot punching left and right
and if the player moves backwards
it allows them to block the opposing robot's punches.
And then the final game that we created
was Rainbow Journey,
which was the sensory experience game.
So in this game, the avatar kind of moves around by itself
and then any input by the wheelchair user
is translated into audio and visual feedback.
So, orbs fly out in explosions,
and the scenery changes color
and the music kind of changes tempo
based on how much they're moving.
So, here you can see the implementation
to how we tracked wheelchair movement.
So, where possible we tracked the players
just sitting in their wheelchair
using the standard kind of connected skeleton.
But then we used a market-based approach
for the children that didn't have upper body movement.
That way we could make sure
that everyone could play the games in the same way.
So, after the development phase,
we returned back to St. Francis
to explore the experience that young people
using powered wheelchairs had when engaging
with these games that we had made
though these three case studies.
We were interested in the accessibility of the games
and how individual differences between players
would affect the experience
and potential value of movement-based play.
In this presentation, I will focus
on two of the case studies
to illustrate some of our more important findings.
So, for the first case study,
it explores Daniel's experience with our games.
Daniel's 18 years old
and has been using a powered wheelchair
for five years following a severe traffic accident.
He's an avid gamer and uses gaze control
to communicate with people and technology.
He uses a head switch to move his wheelchair
and as a result of technical limitations,
he can't actually use the gaze control system
and head switch at the same time
and needs help switching between the two.
So, we first observed him play
and then talked about his experience with the games.
What we found was that he could generally access all
of the games and the head switch actually introduced
a small amount of lag into the play
which wasn't problematic for two of the games
in Rumble Robot and Rainbow Journey,
but it made a massive difference
in the avatar-controlled Speed Slope,
suggesting that we don't just have to account
for player abilities
but also the impact that assistive technology
can have on the interaction process.
Another aspect that was related
to the impact of assistive technology
and mostly, again, it's limitations,
was that Daniel didn't just use the wheelchair
to move around,
or in our case, control the games,
but also to express his emotions.
So, because he needed help to switch
between communication and steering mode,
when he was happy about in-game events,
he was smiling,
you could tell he was happy and having a good time,
but then he would start moving around the wheelchair
to express this,
which the game would then read as an input
when he wasn't actually trying
to use it as a game input at that time,
which made the game kind of confusing in some instances.
So, I guess that kind of,
it's a valuable lesson
in offering more flexible interaction paradigms
in the games we made
and also, kind of about the state
of assistive technology
and how it can affect its' users.
The second case study I was gonna talk about
is of Samuel and Matt.
So, Samuel and Matt are both 16 and 17 years old,
and they have a neurodegenerative disease.
So, they don't just struggle with growth
but also fine motor movements.
They both took part in the game's design process
and they wanted to attend all
of the gaming sessions together.
So, although our games don't support multi-player
at the minute it was interesting for us
because it gave us some insights
into the social elements around play.
Interestingly, while both of the guys
really enjoyed playing the games,
and particularly liked the wheelchair controls
for their simplicity,
they actually commented that not having
to fiddle with the game pad was really helpful.
We also saw performance difference between the two
developed fairly early into the sessions.
At the end of the day,
Matt had better wheelchair control than Samuel
possibly as a result of the further progression
of Samuel's cerebral palsy.
So, although we would've expected
they would be quite similar in their abilities,
small differences slowly turned
into much bigger differences in in-game performance,
suggesting that game balance is really important
in this setting.
Another complete different aspect
that came out of the work of Samuel and Matt
was their perspective on the assistive skier
in Speed Slope.
So, while they were apprehensive during the design sessions
of the inclusion of an assistive skiing device,
both were very enthusiastic about the avatar,
and upon seeing it,
Samuel commented that the game
was designed for people like us
and it shows people like us.
And that kind of underlies the importance
of disability actually being represented in games.
So, where does this leave us?
Well, in the case studies our games are generally accessible
for players who use powered wheelchairs
and can contribute to the diversification
of movement-based leisure activities
for young people using powered wheelchairs,
they also suggest that there's still a long way to go
for some participants.
We like to think that bringing ability-based design
is a way of practicing colleague's idea
that it's essential to empower users
by building what they're already good at
and bring that to games,
and integrating wheelchairs into the interaction process
could be one part of that.
In terms of game accessibility,
we feel that the most important outcome of this project
is the idea of how it needs to be extended
to include the game content
and not just the game interaction,
allowing individuals to find themselves in stories
and showing empowering images of disability
is something with a long history in other types of media
that hasn't really made it to games
but could easily be accomplished
through more diverse avatars and in-game characters.
Another area of game accessibility that was touched upon
in the context of our project
were the guideline-based one-size-fits-all approaches.
While we did our best to ensure
that the games were suited for all players,
our case studies also showed how difference in abilities
requires further balancing,
and understanding the rules of play
can be challenging,
particularly for players with cognitive impairments.
This suggests that we need new design strategies
to turn games into empowering experiences
for these audiences.
For example, something like a sandbox style play
could be a valuable design opportunity
and that's something we'd very much like to explore
in the future.
So, basically, what I'd like you to take away
from this presentation
is that movement-based games have the potential
to open up new experiences for young people
with mobility impairment.
However, our findings also show the need
to explore game accessibility
and move beyond interfaces and mechanics
to understand how we can develop inclusive game content
and can provide compelling
and empowering experiences for all.
Before I finish, I'd like to thank our project partners:
charity SpecialEffect
and of course, all the students and staff at St. Francis,
'cause we couldn't have done the work without their support.
(audience applause)