Through the research process, we produced an
application, Spill Sammen, with three favorite games
of older adults (Chinese Checkers, Solitaire and
Sudoku). Only the Chinese Checkers was fully
developed at the time of writing. We reflected on the
findings and proposed a list of design guidelines for
designing digital games for older adults. The older
adults were positive in using the application and
would like to use it to play games with other players.
Further research will include continuing to
develop Spill Sammen and implementing features
such as providing text, audio and/or video
functionality. We would like to improve the prototype
and use it to conduct focus group interviews remotely
(i.e., two or more older adults can be online together
and play a game). In addition, we shall evaluate the
impact of home-dwelling older adults playing digital
games in relation to their social interaction. We have
yet to explore the ways home-dwelling older adults
could use Spill Sammen by themselves and the impact
of this in relation to their social interaction.
In addition, we will explore gaming technologies
focusing on intergenerational play, where the user-
centered design approach is extended to include
children and grandchildren as end users. Previous
studies have demonstrated promising results of
playing intergenerational digital games (De la Hera et
al., 2017; Li et al., 2019; Loos et al., 2019). Some
participants in this study who had grandchildren
expressed their interest in playing Spill Sammen with
their grandchildren. Last but not least, such digital
games need not be limited to home-dwelling older
adults, but they can also benefit older adults living in
nursing homes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank all participants for their
enthusiastic participation despite the sheltering
measures and the fact that all activities had to be
conducted remotely.
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