Player-centered, iterative, and interdisciplinary design and development of a mobile exergame for older cardiac patients

Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Vetenskapsrådet

Reducing inactivity in cardiac patients is vital since it can decrease the risk for disease progression and mortality. Current commercial available exergames (games where one has to be physically active to be able to play) might not optimally meet the needs of cardiac patients. The aim of this project was to design and develop a mobile exergame app involving end-users (elderly cardiac patients).

The player-centered, iterative, interdisciplinary, and integrated (P-III) framework for designing and developing serious games has been modified and used for designing and developing the exergame involving end-users. This framework has 4 pillars:

1. Player-centered design process

2. Iterative development

3. Interdisciplinary teamwork

4. Integration of play and the serious content

End-users involved in the project were patients from a local patient organization for patients with heart and lung diseases.

In the player-centered design process cardiac patients were involved in the entire game design and development, not only during the usability testing phase. In the iterative development of the game, we had a visual game design of the game to understand the players’ group and the problem domain. Later the visual game concept was transformed into a prototype of the game. This prototype was adapted within seven iterations to a mobile exergame. The development was through interdisciplinary teamwork, where both cardiac patients, experts in cardiac care and game developers worked closely together in developing the game. The serious content in our project is physical activity and the integration is focused on exergame design guidelines for older adults and fitness application guidelines for cardiac patients.

The mobile exergame that was developed, has as main goal to walk 10 minutes more a day. The concept of the game is based on taking care of a farm and expanding it by sowing, watering, and planting fruits and vegetables. To do activities in the farm the user has to walk in the physical world, this could be both done indoors or outdoors. Each activity is rewarded with experience points (see screenshot mobile exergame).

An exergame was successfully developed within an interdisciplinary team with as goal to encourage cardiac patients to walk 10 minutes more a day. This game will now be tested in a randomized control trial, called the Heart-eXg study.

Screenshot exergame