Diabetic Mario: Designing and Evaluating Mobile Games for Diabetes Education.
Traditionally, diabetes education has relied on written materials, with limited resources available for children with diabetes. Mobile games can be effective and motivating tools for the promotion of children's health. In our earlier work, we proposed a novel approach for designing computer games aimed at educating children with diabetes. In this article, we apply our game design to a mobile Android game (Mario Brothers). We also introduce four heuristics that are specifically designed for evaluating the mobile game, by adapting traditional usability heuristics. Results of a pilot study (n = 12) to evaluate gameplay over 1-week showed that the children found the game engaging and improved their knowledge of healthy diet and lifestyle.
1 Unitec Institute of Technology , Auckland, New Zealand .
Nilufar
N
Baghaei
1 Unitec Institute of Technology , Auckland, New Zealand .
David
D
Nandigam
1 Unitec Institute of Technology , Auckland, New Zealand .
John
J
Casey
2 National Institute for Health Innovation, The University of Auckland , Auckland, New Zealand .
Artur
A
Direito
2 National Institute for Health Innovation, The University of Auckland , Auckland, New Zealand .|3 Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University Geelong, Australia .
Ralph
R
Maddison
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000628:therapy*; D000072001:Diet, Healthy / Q000523:psychology; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D000066506:Heuristics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063731:Mobile Applications; D009520:New Zealand; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012985:Software Design; D018910:Video Games / Q000523:psychology*