Understanding User Experience in Serious Games: The Role of Narratives, Game Design and Player Background

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
} }
Citation