Development of Design Heuristics for Digital Educational Games for Children Aged 7-9

Abstract

The research aims to extract a new heuristic set for designing Digital Educational Games (DEGs) for children aged 7 to 9 years from the existing set of DEG7-11 heuristics. DEG7-11 is a set of heuristics for designing DEGs for children aged 7-11 however there was a report that a game designed using DEG7-11 was still unsatisfactory for all over the children aged 7-11. The youngest children (7 years) and the oldest children (11 years) might prefer different features of DEGs. Extraction of these heuristics is required. Heuristic Evaluation (HE) and game review scores were employed to the extraction process. A hundred DEGs created for children aged 7-9 were chosen from the Learn4Good website. The assumption was that the more the DEG7-11 heuristics are followed when designing a DEG for children aged 7-9, the higher the game review scores is. The result shows that if 6 of 8 of DEG7-11 are followed when designing a DEG for children aged 7-9; it is more likely that the DEG will have a higher game review score. The discussion leads nicely into a consideration and the design of the DEG7-9 which is a set of Design Heuristics for DEGs for particular children aged 7-9.