research-article

SemTh: an approach to the design of therapeutic digital games

Authors:

Paula Maia de Souza,

Kamila Rios da Hora Rodrigues,

Vânia Paula de Almeida NerisAuthors Info & Claims

IHC '19: Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Article No.: 45, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/3357155.3358440

Published: 22 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Therapeutic digital games are able to conceal therapeutic tasks behind a fantasy world, and thus increase patient motivation and adherence to therapies. The design of this category of games differs from others since it requires an understanding of the domain of therapy that has to be addressed, as well as the necessary knowledge of game development. Research in the literature has highlighted that there is a lack of a formal approach that can allow a multidisciplinary team to be involved in the design of this category of games. This paper adopts a semio-participatory approach to the design of therapeutic digital games, which includes a multidisciplinary team and supports the different profiles of professionals who take part in the whole design process. The approach, called SemTh, was based on a) data from the literature, b) reports of the experiences of professionals who have designed therapeutic games and c) an evaluation of researchers in the areas of computation and health. SemTh was used to devise a therapeutic game for children diagnosed with cancer. The approach was evaluated by the professionals involved in the process of game construction and obtained positive results, mainly with regard to understanding the domain, the needs of the target users and the therapeutic aspects of the game.

References

[1]

Maria Cecília Calani Baranauskas, Maria Cecília Martins, and José Armando Valente. 2013. Codesign de Redes Digitais: Tecnologia e Educação a Serviço da Inclusão Social. Penso Editora. Google-Books-ID: m7o3AgAAQBAJ.

[2]

Margaret M. Bradley and Peter J. Lang. 1994. Measuring Emotion: The Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ /7962581

[3]

Heather Desurvire, Martin Caplan, and Jozsef A. Toth. 2004. Using Heuristics to Evaluate the Playability of Games. In CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '04). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1509--1512.

Digital Library

[4]

Franco Eusébio Garcia, Kamila Rios da Hora Rodrigues, and Vânia Paula de Almeida Neris. 2016. An Interaction Modeling Language for Therapeutic Applications. In Proceedings of the 15th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems (IHC '16). ACM, 32:1--32:10.

Digital Library

[5]

Kecheng Liu. 2000. Semiotics in Information Systems Engineering. Cambridge University Press.

[6]

S. Mader, G. Levieux, and S. Natkin. 2016. A Game Design Method for Therapeutic Games. In 2016 8th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES) (2016--09). 1--8.

[7]

Geoffrey E. Mills. 2000. Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

[8]

Rodrigo L. Motta and José T. Junior. 2013. Short game design document (SGDD) Documento de game design aplicado a jogos de pequeno porte e advergames Um estudo de caso do advergame Rockergirl Bikeway. In SBC - Proceedings of SBGames 2013. http://www.sbgames.org/sbgames2013/proceedings/artedesign/15-dt-paper_SGDD.pdf

[9]

Michael J. Muller, Jean Hallewell Haslwanter, and Tom Dayton. 1997. Participatory Practices in the Software Lifecycle. In Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (Second Edition), Marting G. Helander, Thomas K. Landauer, and Prasad V. Prabhu (Eds.). North-Holland, Amsterdam, 255--297.

[10]

D. Nishikawa, L. Novak, M. Azevedo, P. C. Branco, R. Olivi, R. Brandão, F. E. Garcia, and V. P. A. Neris. 2016. Se cuidar, cuidar de algo, se divertir e aprender fazem bem! Demonstração de um jogo para apoiar o tratamento da depressão.

[11]

Alex F. Osborn. 1979. Applied Imagination. Scribner, New York.

[12]

Michele Pirovano, Elif Surer, Renato Mainetti, Pier Luca Lanzi, and N. Alberto Borghese. 2016. Exergaming and rehabilitation: A methodology for the design of effective and safe therapeutic exergames. Entertainment Computing 14, Supplement C (May 2016), 55--65.

[13]

Kamila R. H. Rodrigues, Lucas F. Bocanegra, Vinícius P. Gonçalves, Vinícius G. Carvalho, and Vânia P. A. Neris. 2014. Enriquecimento De Personas Para Apoio Ao Design De Aplicações Terapêuticas Para a Saúde Mental. In Proceedings of the 13th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC '14). Sociedade Brasileira de Computação, 51--60.

Digital Library

[14]

K. R. H. Rodrigues, D. B. F. Conrado, and V. P. A. Neris. 2018. Lessons Learned in Designing a Digital Therapeutic Game to Support the Treatment and Well-Being of Children with Cancer. In Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2018)). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, to be published.

[15]

Kamila R. H. Rodrigues, Franco E. Garcia, Lucas F. Bocanegra, Vinicius P. Gonçalves, Vinícius G. Carvalho, and Vânia P. A. Neris. 2015. Personas-Driven Design for Mental Health Therapeutic Applications. In SBC Journal on Interactive Systems, Vol. 6. Sociedade Brasileira de Computação, 18--34.

[16]

Paula Maia de Souza. 2018. Abordagem para o Design de Jogos Digitais Terapêuticos. 115p. Dissertação de mestrado. Universidade Federal de São Carlos. São Carlos, SP.

[17]

Paula Maia de Souza, Kamila Rios da Hora Rodrigues, Franco Eusébio Garcia, and Vânia Paula de Almeida Neris. 2018. Towards a Semiotic-Based Approach to the Design of Therapeutic Digital Games. In Digitalisation, Innovation, and Transformation (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology), Kecheng Liu, Keiichi Nakata, Weizi Li, and Cecilia Baranauskas (Eds.). Springer International Publishing, 53--62.

[18]

R. K. Stamper. 1992. Language and computer in organized behaviour. In Riet, R. P.; Meersman, R.A. (Eds). Linguistic Instruments in Knowledge Engineering. Elsevier Science, 143--163.

[19]

Gary Ushaw, Richard Davison, Janet Eyre, and Graham Morgan. 2015. Adopting Best Practices from the Games Industry in Development of Serious Games for Health. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Digital Health 2015 (DH '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1--8.

Digital Library

[20]

Sarah Verschueren, Connor Buffel, and Geert Vander Stichele. 2019. Developing Theory-Driven, Evidence-Based Serious Games for Health: Framework Based on Research Community Insights. JMIR Serious Games 7, 2 (2019), e11565.

Cited By

Verhalen ARodrigues K(2024)The use of serious digital games to talk about grief and finitude with children: reports on the design and evaluation process of two gamesJournal on Interactive Systems10.5753/jis.2024.410115:1(926-941)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.5753/jis.2024.4101
de Souza PSantos VAlves BProença FMotti VRodrigues KNeris V(2024)Case Study: End users in recovery from substance use disorders as designers and developers of digital games with therapeutic potentialExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3637114(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3637114
Verhalen ASilva TRodrigues K(2023)Once upon a time... you! A game to support health professionals in the treatment of children with chronic diseases, helping them to express their feelingsProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3638067.3638129(1-10)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638067.3638129
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

SemTh: an approach to the design of therapeutic digital games
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
  2. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design process and methods
      1. Participatory design

Recommendations

Once upon a time... you! A game to support health professionals in the treatment of children with chronic diseases, helping them to express their feelings
IHC '23: Proceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Serious games are being used in many areas to develop skills in target users. In the Health area, serious games are used to help patients understand procedures that they are applied during the treatments. When the patient is a child, the game can help ...
Defining grief play in MMORPGs: player and developer perceptions
ACE '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology

In current literature, grief play in Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) refers to play styles where a player intentionally disrupts the gaming experience of other players. In our study, we have discovered that player experiences ...
Design of Therapeutic Digital Games that Support Dialogue with Children about Death
IHC '23: Proceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Grief and loss are topics that people generally avoid discussing, especially with children. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 caused thousands of children to lose relatives or friends, and this topic gained notoriety and relevance. Parents and caregivers ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

IHC '19: Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems

October 2019

679 pages

ISBN:9781450369718

DOI:10.1145/3357155

General Chairs:
Rodrigo Laiola Guimaraes
Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (UFES)
,
Celso Alberto Saibel Santos
Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (UFES)
,
Program Chairs:
Vagner Figueredo de Santana
IBM Research
,
Artur Kronbauer
Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS)

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SBC: Brazilian Computer Society

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 22 October 2019

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Conference

IHC '19

Sponsor:

SBC

IHC '19: XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems

October 22 - 25, 2019

Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

Acceptance Rates

IHC '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 56 of 165 submissions, 34%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 331 of 973 submissions, 34%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

11
Total Citations
View Citations
204
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)29
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)5

Reflects downloads up to 25 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Verhalen ARodrigues K(2024)The use of serious digital games to talk about grief and finitude with children: reports on the design and evaluation process of two gamesJournal on Interactive Systems10.5753/jis.2024.410115:1(926-941)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.5753/jis.2024.4101
de Souza PSantos VAlves BProença FMotti VRodrigues KNeris V(2024)Case Study: End users in recovery from substance use disorders as designers and developers of digital games with therapeutic potentialExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3637114(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3637114
Verhalen ASilva TRodrigues K(2023)Once upon a time... you! A game to support health professionals in the treatment of children with chronic diseases, helping them to express their feelingsProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3638067.3638129(1-10)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638067.3638129
Verhalen ARodrigues K(2023)Design of Therapeutic Digital Games that Support Dialogue with Children about DeathProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3638067.3638112(1-8)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638067.3638112
da Hora Rodrigues KElias Cardoso Verhalen AWillian da Silva JMarino Silva TGeurgas Zavarizz Rde Almeida Neris VMaia de Souza P(2023)Design and Evaluation of an Authoring Platform for Therapeutic Digital GamesInteracting with Computers10.1093/iwc/iwac04535:2(118-141)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwac045
Verhalen AZavarizz RSilva JSilva TNunes Cde Gois Ribeiro Darin TRodrigues KSantos CBento Villela MRios da Hora Rodrigues Kde Gois Ribeiro Darin T(2022)Telling your own storyProceedings of the 21st Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3554364.3561610(1-7)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3554364.3561610
da Hora Rodrigues Kde Gois Ribeiro Darin Tde Almeida Neris V(2022)Building your own games: A platform for authoring digital games2022 21st Brazilian Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment (SBGames)10.1109/SBGAMES56371.2022.9961073(1-6)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SBGAMES56371.2022.9961073
Rodrigues KNeris VSouza PZavarizz Rda Silva JSilva TVerhalen A(2021)Rufus - Uma Plataforma de Autoria para Jogos Digitais TerapêuticosProceedings of the X Latin American Conference on Human Computer Interaction10.1145/3488392.3488407(1-5)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488392.3488407
Verhalen APereira VBim Sde Mello de Picoli RMaciel Cda Hora Rodrigues KMonteiro Ida Hora Rodrigues Kde Gois Ribeiro Darin TFreire AMota M(2021)Jungle party: a game about loss and griefProceedings of the XX Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3472301.3484364(1-7)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472301.3484364
de Souza Pde Almeida Neris VProença FGarcia FMonteiro Ida Hora Rodrigues Kde Gois Ribeiro Darin TFreire AMota M(2021)Creation of Personas by End-Users in Alcohol and Drugs Abuse RehabilitationProceedings of the XX Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3472301.3484321(1-11)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472301.3484321
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents