A Software Engineering Framework for Reusable Design of Personalized Serious Games for Health: Development Study.

Area of Science:

• Software Engineering
• Game Design
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Serious games in healthcare motivate adherence, reduce costs, and educate patients.
• Current serious games lack personalization, are costly, and complex to develop.
• A standardized approach for personalizing serious games is missing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a software engineering framework for designing personalized serious games in healthcare.
• To streamline the design process by facilitating knowledge and algorithm reuse.
• To simplify the comparison and evaluation of different personalization strategies.

Main Methods:

• A framework was developed addressing: Why personalize? What parameters? How to personalize?
• Stakeholders (domain expert, game developer, software engineer) were assigned specific roles.
• The framework was illustrated and evaluated using a proof-of-concept serious game.

Main Results:

• A proof-of-concept serious game for shoulder rehabilitation was developed and evaluated.
• Simulations demonstrated the value of both real-time and offline personalization.
• The framework simplified the design process and showed component interaction.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework clarifies stakeholder roles in personalized serious game design.
• It emphasizes knowledge transferability and personalization algorithm reusability.
• The framework simplifies the development of personalized serious games in healthcare.