vrSensory: Designing Inclusive Virtual Games with Neurodiverse Children

ABSTRACT

We explore virtual environments and accompanying interaction styles to enable inclusive play. In designing games for three neurodiverse children, we explore how designing for sensory diversity can be understood through a formal game design framework. Our process reveals that by using sensory processing needs as requirements we can make sensory and social accessible play spaces. We contribute empirical findings for accommodating sensory differences for neurodiverse children in a way that supports inclusive play. Specifically, we detail the sensory driven design choices that not only support the enjoyability of the leisure activities, but that also support the social inclusion of sensory-diverse participants. The participants displayed behaviors in the multi-user version consistent with their behaviors in the single user version with the addition of social behavior. We tie these techniques to game design mechanics to iterate on our efforts to support inclusive game development. Preliminary results are discussed.

References

1. LouAnne Boyd. 2019. Designing Sensory-Inclusive Virtual Play Spaces for Children. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '19), 446--451.
2. LouAnne Boyd, Kendra Day, Ben Wasserman, Kaitlyn Abdo, Gillian Hayes, and Erik Linstead. 2019. Paper Prototyping Comfortable VR Play for Diverse Sensory Needs. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '19), LBW1714:1--LBW1714:6.
3. LouAnne E. Boyd. 2018. Designing and Evaluation Alternative Channels: Visualizing Nonverbal Communication in AR and VR for People with Autism. University of California, Irvine.
4. LouAnne E. Boyd, Kendra Day, Natalia Stewart, Kaitlyn Abdo, Kathleen Lamkin, and Erik Linstead. 2018. Leveling the Playing Field: Supporting Neurodiversity via Vitual Realities. Technology and Innovation 20.
5. Winnie Dunn. 2014. Sensory ProfileTM 2. Pearson, Bloomington, MN.
6. Winnie Dunn, Lauren Little, Evan Dean, Sara Robertson, and Benjamin Evans. 2016. The State of the Science on Sensory Factors and Their Impact on Daily Life for Children: A Scoping Review.
7. Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. 2004. MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. In Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, 1722.
8. Lauren M. Little, Evan Dean, Scott Tomchek, and Winnie Dunn. 2017. Sensory Processing Patterns in Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Typical Development. Physical & Occupational Therapy In Pediatrics 0, 0: 1--12.
9. Deysi Helen Ortega, Franceli Linney Cibrian, and Mónica Tentori. 2015. BendableSound: A Fabric-based Interactive Surface to Promote Free Play in Children with Autism. In Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '15), 315--316.
10. Kathryn E. Ringland, Christine T. Wolf, LouAnne E. Boyd, Mark S. Baldwin, and Gillian R. Hayes. 2016. Would You Be Mine: Appropriating Minecraft As an Assistive Technology for Youth with Autism. In Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16), 33--41.
11. Kathryn E. Ringland, Rodrigo Zalapa, Megan Neal, Lizbeth Escobedo, Monica Tentori, and Gillian R. Hayes. 2014. SensoryPaint: a multimodal sensory intervention for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. 873--884.
12. Kristen Shinohara, Cynthia L. Bennett, Wanda Pratt, and Jacob O. Wobbrock. 2018. Tenets for Social Accessibility: Towards Humanizing Disabled People in Design. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing 11, 1: 1--3.

Index Terms

• Human-centered computing