Accessible Gamification

See your favorite games like never before!

Ever wondered why farming for a mighty sword in a fantasy game feels entertaining and fun while filling out reporting documents – a seemingly similar repetitive activity – is incredibly boring? If so, you are not alone!

The vast field of Gamification applies techniques and patterns from fundamental mechanics of game design to non-game contexts in order to make business tasks more fun for a user. This can lead to increased efficiency and accuracy and even facilitate better health by reducing exhaustion.

However, there is one particular requirement that often becomes a hurdle for Gamification efforts: meeting accessibility requirements.

In this computer science course, we will investigate this use case closer and derive a new set of patterns that are representation-agnostic. You will learn the fundamentals of Gamification and accessibility, as well as lessons in game development and game design. We will take a look at popular digital games and draw patterns from their game design and game mechanics.

By the end of this course, you will have gained a better grasp on the problem at hand and learn patterns and techniques to deploy gamification in a broader and more abstract scope.

But be warned: you might see your favorite digital games like you never saw them before – as a wired, but well-tailored, combination of reward, development, discover and challenge.

TARGET GROUPS AND REQUIRED SKILLS
Anybody who is interested in deriving knowledge from Game Design for non-game contexts and software developers who want to learn about combining gamification and accessibility in particular. COURSE DURATION AND EFFORTS
The course is self-paced with about 60 minutes of material spread over 5 weeks. Participants should reserve up to two hours per week for homework and time to reflect on the topics. DESCRIPTION
The course will start with an introduction to well-known gamification patterns and approaches. This will lead us to an interesting challenge: combining accessibility and gamification. To solve this, we will take one step back and look at digital games to find patterns that make them fun and entertaining.The course will guide you through a series of games, where we derive game design patterns to serve as basic building blocks for an accessible gamification approach. COURSE TEAM
Andreas Stiegler (Hochschule der Medien / Stuttgart Media University). COURSE STRUCTURE
Week 1: Gamification
Games and fun
Gamification
Quest: real-world examples for motivation
Players: Bartle
Quest: genres & players; classification quiz
Beyond Bartle
Quest: Analyze some games you play! / What kind of player are you? Week 2: Accessible Gamification
Gamification Concepts
Quest: Sample Business Process
Gamification Requirements
Quest: Picture Show: real world examples. Is there gamification involved?
Accessibility: personalisation vs accessibility; Universal Design; gamification and accessibility.
Quest: find collisions of accessibility & gamification Week 3: Game Design Patterns
One Step Back
Quest: game design vs game mechanics
Reward
Quest: examples: Dungeon Crawler
Discovery
Quest: Examples: Space Sims
Challenge
Quest: examples: RTS
Development
Quest: Examples: MMOG
Action space
Quest: examples: FPS
Quest: pick a game of your choice and dissect it Week 4: Examples: Reward & Challenge
Reward: immediate & measurable; designing reward (Skinner box, achievements, exclusivity)
Quest: showcase: RPG quest rewards
Challenge: business process vs gamification; designing challenge
Quest: showcase: Casual “Arkanoids”
Applications for the web
Quest: design a quest for an RPG Week 5: Examples: Action Space & Development
Action space: action space models; action space pollution
Quest: TCG strategies
Development: characters and history; visuals; economy
Quest: MMOG characters
Applications for the web
Quest: take a look at your web browser and its action space