Design and development of application supporting people with mobility issues using the Kinect platform

• Κύριος συγγραφέας: Βέντζα, Δάφνη-Σπυριδούλα
• Άλλοι συγγραφείς: Ventza, Dafni-Spyridoula
• Γλώσσα: English
• Έκδοση: 2022
• Θέματα: Kinect sensor; Game design; Natural user interfaces; Exergaming; Motion gaming; Mobility; User experience; Level design; Gait analysis; Player-centered design; Σχεδίαση παιχνιδιών; Αλληλεπίδραση ανθρώπου υπολογιστή

This thesis is regarding designing and developing a game application using the camera sensor of Microsoft Kinect v1 released in 2010 by Microsoft Corporation. The application is targeted to people with mobility issues and approaches the topic of exergaming; a term used for utilizing digital games for exercise and rehabilitation processes. Main application goal is to investigate the impact games have on people facing disabilities risks – mostly those of low-to-medium severity impairments - and patients facing a lack of balance due to different diseases and disorders they are living with. The user persona specified for the thesis topic is people first and foremost experiencing autoimmune diseases, and secondarily people that have experienced, in the early past, strokes, heart attacks or orthopaedics related issues. The game designed and developed after comprehensive analysis and consideration is called “Parkland” and is an open-world game, simulating the user via an avatar positioned in an open environment scene. The walkthrough of this dissertation provided a proposed solution which serves the Player-Centered Design framework for the player persona defined. Accessibility has been taken into first stage considerations in addition to the Cattel-Horn Carrol (CHC) cognitive psychology theory with McGrew enhances. User Testing conducted with a limited sample of four people – three remotely and one live – offers justification to the design affirmations and suggests additional future improvements and additions to the application.