Visual complexity, player experience, performance and physical exertion in motion-based games for older adults

Motion-based video games can have a variety of benefits for the players and are increasingly applied in physical therapy, rehabilitation and prevention for older adults. However, little is known about how this audience experiences playing such games, how the player experience affects the way older adults interact with motion-based games, and how this can relate to therapy goals. In our work, we decompose the player experience of older adults engaging with motion-based games, focusing on the effects of manipulations of the game representation through the visual channel (visual complexity), since it is the primary interaction modality of most games and since vision impairments are common amongst older adults. We examine the effects of different levels of visual complexity on player experience, performance, and exertion in a study with fifteen participants. Our results show that visual complexity affects the way games are perceived in two ways: First, while older adults do have preferences in terms of visual complexity of video games, notable effects were only measurable following drastic variations. Second, perceived exertion shifts depending on the degree of visual complexity. These findings can help inform the design of motion-based games for therapy and rehabilitation for older adults

Post-mortem information management: exploring contextual factors in appropriate personal data access after death

\ua9 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.With the increasing size and complexity of personal information and data landscapes, there is a need for guidance and support in the appropriate management of a deceased person’s postmortem privacy and digital legacy. However, most people engage poorly with existing mechanisms for specifying and planning for access and suitable usage of their own data. We report on two studies exploring the ways in which contextual factors such as the accessor and the data type may affect the appropriateness of personal data flows differently during life and after death. Our findings indicate that suitable data access after death is highly individual and contextual, with differences in appropriateness between during-life and after-death data flows significantly affected by the accessor and the data type in question. We identify that ambiguous accessor motivation, failure to communicate intent, changing temporal context and latent data values further complicate the act of digital legacy planning. Our findings also provide further evidence for the existence of a postmortem privacy paradox in which reported user behaviors do not reflect intent. With this in mind, we offer design recommendations for the integration of digital legacy planning functionality within Personal Information Management (PIM) and Group Information Management (GIM) systems

A catalogue of UK household datasets to monitor transitions to sustainable diets

There is growing international consensus that current patterns of food consumption are not sustainable and global change is needed. Understanding the mechanisms for a transition towards more sustainable diets requires systematic temporal monitoring at the individual or household level. Whilst many countries collect panel data on food expenditure and dietary intake, these datasets are often not designed to monitor progress towards dietary sustainability, therefore using them to understand how or why diets are becoming more or less sustainable can prove challenging. What is also lacking is a curated dataset catalogue or a library where all relevant data could be easily accessible to enable such evaluation. Our aim was to identify, classify and describe existing food expenditure and diet datasets available in the UK and to assess the extent to which they can be used to monitor transitions to sustainable diets. We found that despite the large number of datasets tracking UK individual or household food purchases and consumption over time, these datasets are not suited to understand how and why individuals are transitioning to sustainable diets. With the exception of proprietary datasets, most datasets only collect data annually, making it challenging to understand fine-scale behavioural change over shorter timeframes. There is an opportunity to design and implement an open-access UK sustainable diets data collection effort at the individual and household level. These efforts can be complemented with recent innovations in data science methods and digital technologies – such as dietary intake trackers – that, along with supporting individuals in their dietary behaviour change, may enable the collection of high-quality datasets

Impact of educational interventions on adolescent attitudes and knowledge regarding vaccination: A pilot study

© 2018 Carolan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Background Current immunisation levels in England currently fall slightly below the threshold recommended by the World Health Organization, and the three-year trend for vaccination uptake is downwards. Attitudes towards vaccination can affect future decisions on whether or not to vaccinate, and this can have significant public health implications. Interventions can impact future vaccination decisions, and these interventions can take several forms. Relatively little work has been reported on the use of vaccination interventions in young people, who form the next generation of individuals likely to make vaccination decisions. Method We investigated the impact of two different types of educational intervention on attitudes towards vaccination in young people in England. A cohort of young people (n = 63) was recruited via a local school. This group was divided into three sub-groups; one (n = 21) received a presentation-based intervent ion, one (n = 26) received an interactive simulation-based intervention, and the third (n = 16) received no intervention. Participants supplied information on (1) their attitudes towards vaccination, and (2) their information needs and views on personal choice concerning vaccination, at three time points: immediately before and after the intervention, and after six months. Results Neither intervention had a significant effect on participants’ attitudes towards vaccination. However, the group receiving the presentation-based intervention saw a sustained uplift in confidence about information needs, which was not observed in the simulation-based intervention group. Discussion Our findings with young people are consistent with previous work on vaccination interventions aimed at adults, which have shown limited effectiveness, and which can actually reduce intention to vaccinate. Our findings on the most effective mode of delivery for the intervention should inform future discussion in the growing “games for health” domain, which proposes the use of interactive digital resources in healthcare education

Involving Users and Experts in Motion-Based Game Design for Older Adults

Motion-based video games have a variety of positive effects on older adults, but their design remains challenging. Traditional game design often turns towards a user-centered design process, and game design experts are readily available. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of this approach in motion-based game design for older adults. We identify core challenges and show how users and experts can be involved in the design process to help game developers create safe, accessible and enjoyable motion-based games for older adults.Ye