User-Centered Design of a Replayable VR Game for Children with HCP

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Game Design

Background:

• Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy (CP) affects one side of the body, leading to reduced physical activity and increased long-term health risks.
• Current immersive Virtual Reality (VR) games show promise for mobility improvement but often lack sustained engagement and varied stimuli.
• Procedural Content Generation (PCG) offers a potential solution to enhance replayability and user engagement in therapeutic VR applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the use of PCG in immersive VR games to enhance engagement and promote physical activity and upper-limb mobility in children with hemiparetic CP.
• To develop a user-centered VR game prototype incorporating PCG techniques.
• To evaluate the usability and user experience of the VR game prototype.

Main Methods:

• A user-centered design process, including expert interviews, informed the VR game development.
• Procedural Content Generation techniques, specifically Pseudo-Random Number Generators and Markov chains, were integrated for dynamic content adaptation.
• A pilot study with 24 healthy participants assessed usability, user experience, enjoyment, and ease of use.

Main Results:

• The VR game prototype demonstrated high enjoyment and ease of use among healthy participants.
• The integration of PCG successfully adapted object spawning and maintained content variety.
• Participants identified a need for clearer goals, social interaction, and achievement elements to enhance replayability.

Conclusions:

• Procedural Content Generation is a viable approach to enhance engagement and replayability in immersive VR games for rehabilitation.
• The developed VR game prototype shows potential for improving upper-limb mobility and physical activity.
• Future iterations should incorporate social and achievement features to further optimize user engagement and therapeutic outcomes.