On the conceptualization, design, and evaluation of appealing, meaningful, and playable digital games for older people

Abstract

While older people tend to be regarded as actual, or potential, players of digital games within literature on game studies, human-computer interaction, and gerontechnology, they are also often considered nonavid users of digital technologies. This contradiction prompted us to conduct a literature review, which revealed (a) insufficient involvement of older people within the design of games targeted toward this group and (b) insufficient understanding of their everyday digital gameplay. In this article, we present the conceptualization, design, and evaluation of digital games that active older people found to be sufficiently appealing, playable, and meaningful. A 6-month ethnography of the play experiences of 170 older people helped us to conceptualize these games, which were codesigned through playful everyday activities. To facilitate the development of these games, we designed and evaluated an online game creation platform, which enabled 99 older people with different cultural backgrounds to create, play, and contribute to games.