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Are Aesthetics and Accessibility Conflicting Aspects in Serious Games Design?

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Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2024 (ICEC 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 15192))

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Abstract

This paper introduces the wicked problems in educational game design related to designing games that are aesthetic and appealing to a wide and inhomogenous user group at one hand, and on the other hand take the needs of specific users, such as age, impairments, or social disadvantages, into account. We take a closer look at how elements like sounds and aesthetic design support the learning and the immersiveness of one type of users, while for others it reduces the game experience, and therefore often also the learning outcome. We outline what aspects play into game design and argue for the need to consider these aspects earlier in the design process. In line with the goal to outline accessible and aesthetic practices in the field of educational games, we further look into the reuse of artefacts, as well as repurposing of serious games as means to create games that fits a larger group of students/pupils. Therefore, efforts have been underway for a long time to increase the accessibility of games [20,21,22,23]. So far, there are overlays or simplifications that can be implemented for some impairments, but often the games then lose their attractiveness or fail to support the underlying learning goals.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been partly funded by INCLUDEME (No. 621547-EPP-1-2020-1-RO-EPPA3-IPI-SOC-IN) co-funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ program and the work also acknowledges the projects DigiLab4U (Nos. 16DHB2112/3), AuCity 2 and AuCity 3 (Nos. 16DHB2131 and 16DHB2204) by German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the project Serious Game Changers funded by the AK Wien Digitalisierungsfond 4.0 No. (5-353). The presented work represents the authors’ view.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BIBA – Bremer, Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge

  2. KTH-Royal Institute of Technology, 15181, Södertälje, Sweden

    Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge

  3. Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Erik van der Spek

  4. Centre for Teacher Education, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Barbara Göbl

  5. ATS, Targoviste, Romania

    Ioana A. Stefan

  6. Hochschule Weserbergland, 31875, Hameln, Germany

    Heinrich Söbke

  7. Bauhaus-Institute for Infrastructure Solutions (B.Is), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 99423, Weimar, Germany

    Heinrich Söbke

Authors
  1. Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge
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  3. Barbara Göbl
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  4. Ioana A. Stefan
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  5. Heinrich Söbke
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Correspondence to Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

    Pablo Figueroa

  2. University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Angelo Di Iorio

  3. Universidade do Estado do Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil

    Daniel Guzman del Rio

  4. Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Esteban Walter Gonzalez Clua

  5. Universidade do Estado do Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil

    Luis Cuevas Rodriguez

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Hauge, J.B., van der Spek, E., Göbl, B., Stefan, I.A., Söbke, H. (2025). Are Aesthetics and Accessibility Conflicting Aspects in Serious Games Design?. In: Figueroa, P., Di Iorio, A., Guzman del Rio, D., Gonzalez Clua, E.W., Cuevas Rodriguez, L. (eds) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2024. ICEC 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15192. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74353-5_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74353-5_22

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