Designing digital vertigo experiences

Many people enjoy “vertigo” sensations caused by intense playful bodily activities; examples of such activities include spinning in circles, riding fairground rides, and driving fast cars. Game scholar Caillois calls the associated experiences “vertigo play”, elucidating that these enjoyable activities are a result of confusion between sensory channels. In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), designers often attempt to avoid causing sensory confusion as it can be associated with a negative user experience. I believe this has led to a lack of understanding surrounding how to transition and extend Caillois' thinking from analogue games and play to the digital realm. However, with more digital games focusing on the body through technologies such as motion sensors and head mounted displays, an opportunity to understand how to design digital vertigo games has arisen. Understanding this will allow designers to create novel and intriguing digital bodily experiences inspired by traditional vertigo play activities. This thesis explores this opportunity by answering the research question: “How do we design digital vertigo experiences?” I developed and studied three different experiences to answer this research question. The first game, “Inner Disturbance”, is a single player game where sensory confusion is facilitated by manipulating a player's vestibular sense of balance through Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS). The second game, “Balance Ninja”, uses GVS to extend sensory confusion across two players through a feedback loop, whereby the lateral movements of each player affects the GVS system of the opposing player. In the final game, “AR Fighter”, Head Mounted Displays confuse players’ visual sense as a result of the opposing player's movements. Studies of the player experience of the three games led to the development of the Digital Vertigo Experience Framework. This framework, which presents designers with the first understanding of how to design digital vertigo experiences, contains two axes: amount of surrendered body agency, and extent of facilitated sensory confusion. The framework is split into four digital vertigo user experience areas: more daring, more overwhelming, more predictable, and more nauseating. Designers are encouraged to stay within these areas to avoid causing one of four possible risks to players: risk of physical injury, sensory overload, boredom, and nausea. With this work, I aim to bring the excitement of traditional vertigo play experiences to the digital world, guiding designers in their creation. Offering an increased understanding of digital vertigo play experiences will allow designers to create more engaging and exciting body-based games, and provide players with more possibilities to enjoy novel and exciting bodily-play experiences

Designing the vertigo experience: vertigo as a design resource for digital bodily play

Vertigo can be described as an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind. Vertigo has, however, not been generally considered as a design resource and we believe it to be under-explored in the area of digital bodily play. To investigate how vertigo could be considered as a design resource in this context, we conducted a review of relevant literature and held a design workshop with nine students to explore the potential of vertigo as a design resource for digital bodily play. From our exploration we identify five key design themes that designers might consider when designing a Vertigo Experience. Through this work we hope to encourage designers of bodily play experiences to consider vertigo as a design resource in their games

Balance ninja: towards the design of digital vertigo games via galvanic vestibular stimulation

Vertigo – the momentary disruption of the stability of perception – is an intriguing game element that underlies many unique play experiences, such as spinning in circles as children to rock climbing as adults, yet vertigo is relatively unexplored when it comes to digital play. In this paper we explore the potential of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) as a game design tool for digital vertigo games. We detail the design and evaluation of a novel two player GVS game, Balance Ninja. From study observations and analysis of Balance Ninja (N=20), we present three design themes and six design strategies that can be used to aid game designers of future digital vertigo games. With this work we aim to highlight that vertigo can be a valuable digital game element that helps to expand the range of games we play

Inner disturbance: towards understanding the design of vertigo games through a novel balancing game

The design space of vertigo games is under-explored, despite vertigo underlying many unique body based game experiences, such as rock climbing and dancing. In this paper we articulate the design and evaluation of a novel vertigo experience, Inner Disturbance, which uses Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation to affect the player’s balance. Following study observations and a thematic analysis of Inner Disturbance (N=10), we present four themes and associated design sensitivities that can be used to aid designers of future digital vertigo games. With this work we aim to encourage others to experiment within this exciting new design space for digital games

Exergame design for elderly users: the case study of SilverBalance

In this paper, we discuss chances and challenges of game design for an elderly audience with a focus on the development of safe and usable exertion games for frail senior citizens. Based on an analysis of theoretical constraints, we conducted a case study which implements different balance tasks for elderly players featuring the Nintendo Wii Balance Board which encourages users to actively engage in game play. Furthermore, we tested the feasibility of the board as input device for our case study SilverBalance. Our results indicate that age-related impairments influence the use of video games among frail elderly in many respects, hence their needs have to be considered during the design process. In this context, our paper provides a foundation for future research regarding digital games for the elderly. © 2010 ACM

Utilizing gravity in movement-based games and play

This paper seeks to expand the understanding of gravity as a powerful but underexplored design resource for movement-based games and play. We examine how gravity has been utilized and manipulated in digital, physical, and mixed reality games and sports, considering five central and gravity-related facets of user experience: realism, affect, challenge, movement diversity, and sociality. For each facet, we suggest new directions for expanding the field of movement-based games and play, for example through novel combinations of physical and digital elements. Our primary contribution is a structured articulation of a novel point of view for designing games and interactions for the moving body. Additionally, we point out new research directions, and our conceptual framework can be used as a design tool. We demonstrate this in 1) creating and evaluating a novel gravity-based game mechanic, and 2) analyzing an existing movement-based game and suggesting future improvements

Utilizing gravity in movement-based games and play

This paper seeks to expand the understanding of gravity as a powerful but underexplored design resource for movement-based games and play. We examine how gravity has been utilized and manipulated in digital, physical, and mixed reality games and sports, considering five central and gravity-related facets of user experience: realism, affect, challenge, movement diversity, and sociality. For each facet, we suggest new directions for expanding the field of movement-based games and play, for example through novel combinations of physical and digital elements. Our primary contribution is a structured articulation of a novel point of view for designing games and interactions for the moving body. Additionally, we point out new research directions, and our conceptual framework can be used as a design tool. We demonstrate this in 1) creating and evaluating a novel gravity-based game mechanic, and 2) analyzing an existing movement-based game and suggesting future improvements

Neurological, Cognitive, and Psychological Findings Among Survivors of Ebola Virus Disease From the 1995 Ebola Outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo: A Cross-sectional Study.

BackgroundClinical sequelae of Ebola virus disease (EVD) have not been described more than 3 years postoutbreak. We examined survivors and close contacts from the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and determined prevalence of abnormal neurological, cognitive, and psychological findings and their association with EVD survivorship.MethodsFrom August to September 2017, we conducted a cross-sectional study in Kikwit, DRC. Over 2 decades after the EVD outbreak, we recruited EVD survivors and close contacts from the outbreak to undergo physical examination and culturally adapted versions of the Folstein mini-mental status exam (MMSE) and Goldberg anxiety and depression scale (GADS). We estimated the strength of relationships between EVD survivorship and health outcomes using linear regression models by comparing survivors versus close contacts, adjusting for age, sex, educational level, marital status, and healthcare worker status.ResultsWe enrolled 20 EVD survivors and 187 close contacts. Among the 20 EVD survivors, 4 (20%) reported at least 1 abnormal neurological symptom, and 3 (15%) had an abnormal neurological examination. Among the 187 close contacts, 14 (11%) reported at least 1 abnormal neurologic symptom, and 9 (5%) had an abnormal neurological examination. EVD survivors had lower mean MMSE and higher mean GADS scores as compared to close contacts (MMSE: adjusted coefficient: -1.85; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -3.63, -0.07; GADS: adjusted coefficient: 3.91; 95% CI: 1.76, 6.04).ConclusionsEVD survivors can have lower cognitive scores and more symptoms of depression and anxiety than close contacts more than 2 decades after Ebola virus outbreaks

Enhancing the Engagement of Disabled Students with Disability Support Services: A Digital Story Approach

Initiatives that recognise diversity within the student population and understand the range of learner variation have been found to help institutions to better recognise and reduce barriers to learning for disabled people. This paper describes the development of a ‘digital story’ designed to inform all students about the disability support services offered by the University of Hertfordshire. The development and utilisation of a digital story to inform students about disability related issues and services was also designed to foster a more informed and tolerant learning community. The findings of the pilot evaluation study have highlighted the digital story to have increased student understandings of what is recognised as a disability. It was also found to have increased the likelihood of them approaching their disabled student’s coordinator. However, it is notable that a majority of students expressed a desire for an in person talk on disability services. It is concluded that although technology is not necessarily a replacement for the ‘personal touch’, new methods should be found to increase the personal feel of the digital story. It is suggested that the final evaluation questionnaire is modified to capture information about why students want an in person talk and how this can best be achieved in a digital format when personal engagement may not be possible.Peer reviewe