Lessons Learned from the Gamified Solutions in Healthcare Project: Usability Studies of Digital Game-based Physical Exercises for Elderly People

In this paper, we report the usability lessons learned from the usability studies of digital game-based physical exercises for elderly people. We conducted four usability studies of digital games for elderly people’ physical exercise activities in Finland and Japan. The usability studies include the evaluation of commercial digital games (e.g. Microsoft Xbox game), the existing in-house game by Puuha Group Finland (e.g. SportWall), the Finnish, and Japanese usability testing of the Skiing game. We used both quantitative (e.g. questionnaires) and qualitative (e.g. observation and interviews) methods to understand the elderly participants’ user experiences in playing digital game-based physical exercises and the usability problems of the games. Based on the findings from the analysis of data, we discuss the important usability lessons that should be taken into consideration while designing digital game-based physical exercises for elderly people. The discussion in this paper can provide insights for game designers and developers into design and development of digital game-based physical exercises for elderly people.