You can read the full report of the thesis in Greek here
This project aims to practice the cognitive skills of people with memory problems (e.g. elderly people, people on the verge of Alzheimer’s disease) through a variety of mobile games. Also, the purpose of this study was to understand the impact that serious games can have on cognitive skills in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The goal is not only to bring fun to their lives, but also to help them cope with the issues they face.
The world of serious games is not only limited to the design of entertainment and recreational experiences. The serious games are also used with the aim of improving the physical, emotional, and cognitive condition of people.
We were inspired by our family who are growing older. As they age, some of them have started to notice small changes in their ability to remember things or solve problems. We wanted to design an app that made it easy for these people to maintain their cognitive health, so we got to work!
There was designed and implemented 15 games that are divided into 4 cognitive skills
* Problem Solving * Memory * Attention * Brain processing speed
The diploma thesis was held in five stages.
* Research * UX Design and technical requirements * Implementation * Testing * Refactor
Research
Because of the specific nature of the project, we needed to do a bibliography study on serious games and mild cognitive impairment. The purpose of the study was to understand how to design mobile games that they can boost and practice cognitive skills.
UX Design and technical requirements
The users of the application have specific characteristics, so the UX and the usability of the app must be designed carefully. The previous research helped a lot to design the app to achieve its purpose.
From there, we designed our application with specific characteristics in mind: we wanted an intuitive interface that would be easy for anyone over 60 to use. We also wanted the games themselves to be fun and engaging—not boring exercises! This was important because we know that if our users don’t enjoy using it, they won’t continue doing so.
Also In this stage we did the analysis of the application. Functional and no fuctional requirements, architecture, structural requirements.
Implementation
The application was implemented for Android platforms with tablet-oriented graphics. A local SQLite database has been used.
The technologies that have been used are:
* Android SDK * Java * XML * SQLite * Git
Testing
Now it’s time to publish the beta of the application and give it to real users. Ten users used the app and we collected some data! To collect data from the evaluation we used two methods passive user observation and questionnaires. The results were very good! The most important thing is that we had very good feedback from our users!
Refactor
Finally, through the results of the evaluation, we came up with conclusions to improve the usability of the application. So, a massive refactoring has been done. We redesigned the UX of the app, we improved the usability and fixed some bugs.
supervisor professor: Mr. Goumopoulos Christos