Towards age-friendly exergame design : the role of familiarity

• Main Authors: Zhang, Hao, Wu, Qiong, Miao, Chunyan, Shen, Zhiqi, Leung, Cyril
• Other Authors: School of Computer Science and Engineering
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Computer science and engineering; Familiarity; Exergame
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139127
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Exergames have been shown to be effective in helping older adults maintain their physical abilities. However, it is sometimes difficult for older adults to experiment with exergames due to a perceived digital divide. In this work, we propose to bridge this divide through infusing familiarity design into exergames. Specifically, we identify five sub-constructs of familiarity, namely prior experience, positive emotion, occurrence frequency, level of processing, and retention rate. We evaluate the correlations between these five sub-constructs and familiarity through a field study involving 59 Singaporean older adults. Four exergames designed with different interfaces and tasks were sequentially played by the participants. Questionnaire and interview data about the participants’ assessment of the five sub-constructs and the overall familiarity on different exergames were collected. The analysis results show that all five sub-constructs have significant positive correlations with familiarity. Moreover, there is a high positive correlation between the participants’ perceived familiarity of the exergame and their satisfaction with the exergame. Informed by these results, we propose familiarity design guidelines based on the five sub-constructs for age-friendly exergames.