Design and Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Game to Improve Physical and Cognitive Acuity

Physical and mental health are both integral to healthy living and ageing, and a causal-cum-symbiotic relationship has been observed between the two. Physical and cognitive activities such as exercise and board games are known to promote healthy ageing. In this regard, highly engaging lightboard games are known to improve hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and motor skills for individuals. Immersivity of virtual reality games can transform mundane and repetitive exercise routines into stimulating experiences, and they can be utilized by users to improve physical and cognitive performance from the comfort of their homes. In this study, we adopt design science framework to design, develop and evaluate a VR BATAK lightboard game to improve physical reaction, hand-eye coordination, visual memory and cognitive processing. Based on the findings from evaluation over three phases, we propose three design principles related to accessibility, sensory cueing and cognitive loading, as theoretical and practical contributions of this study