Educational games design issues: Motivation and multimodal interaction

Abstract

In this paper we present an approach to identifying and constructing profiles of user interfaces for educational games. Our approach is based on framing games as educational tools that incorporate fun and learning through motivation as the key ingredient in the learning process, and multimodal interaction as the medium for conveying educational material. To date, there is no common standard to design this kind of games and individual solutions are usually carried out by an ad hoc process. Proposed solution formalizes design process describing educational games in terms of estimated effects they produce on players. Building upon research on learning and motivation theory, we are connecting these effects with player learning preferences and motivation states. Our main contribution is to suggest design issues that should be taken into account when designing educational games. We exemplify the approach through our ongoing VStrat project, framework for designing educational games.