Understanding User Experience in Serious Games: The Role of Narratives, Game Design and Player Background
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association
Abstract
This paper presents findings from three user studies conducted on digital heritage games designed to foster historical understanding and emotional engagement through immersive experiences. The evaluated games - We Grew Up in War, Those From Below, and Gulag Diaries - explore historical narratives related to conflict, migration, and forced labor. The studies involved small-scale participant groups from culturally relevant backgrounds, utilizing a mixed-methods approach comprising established game experience questionnaires, structured interviews, and facilitator observations. The results indicate that participants generally responded positively to the games, particularly appreciating their narrative depth, audiovisual design, and emotional impact. However, the studies also identified areas for improvement in terms of usability, navigation, and onboarding, especially given that the games tested were in their alpha stages. Notably, individual differences in prior gaming experience, familiarity with the technology used, and prior knowledge of the historical subject matter significantly influenced how participants engaged with and interpreted the content, while gender was also found to be a moderating factor of game experience. The findings presented in this paper offer useful insights and recommendations for digital heritage games, with an emphasis on improving user experience while maintaining historical authenticity, engaging narratives, and interactive storytelling.
Description
CCS Concepts Human-centered computing~Human computer interaction (HCI)~HCI design and evaluation methods~User studies Applied computing~Computers in other domains~Personal computers and PC applications~Computer games
@inproceedings{10.2312:dh.20253297,
booktitle = {Digital Heritage},
editor = {Campana, Stefano and Ferdani, Daniele and Graf, Holger and Guidi, Gabriele and Hegarty, Zackary and Pescarin, Sofia and Remondino, Fabio},
title = {{Understanding User Experience in Serious Games: The Role of Narratives, Game Design and Player Background}},
author = {Ntoa, Stavroula and Ntagianta, Anastasia and Apostolakis, Konstantinos C. and Stamou, Stefania and Stephanidis, Constantine and Flores, Fernanda and Halilovic, Jasminko and Kolek, Lukáš and Formánková, Lucie and Viraphong, Lisley and Divoy, Emilie and Cernoušková, Petra and Selekos, Petros},
year = {2025},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-277-6},
DOI = {10.2312/dh.20253297}
}