JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Software-based end-to-end games for cognitive assessment are rapidly emerging and progressively being used in neurological settings. These tools have been validated for their scores quantitatively but very little qualitative insights from users currently exist. Such insights on user experience are essential to answer questions linked to games’ large-scale usability, adoption in hospital settings, and for refining the software design.

Objective:

In this work, we perform inductive thematic analysis on the interview data gathered from the two pilot studies on Virtual Reality games for cognitive assessment conducted by us. Young (18-28 years) and old cohort (> 60 years) participated in these studies. The goal of this work is to extract constructive and relevant insights directly from the participants and to use these to answer major questions linked to the practical utility of the game-based cognitive assessment tools.

Methods:

Inductive Thematic Analysis

Results:

Five main themes were identified and discussed : Ergonomic Issues, Post-Game Health Effect, Game Feedback, Learning and Training and System Purpose. From the results it is clear that cognitive assessment games need to be simple, intentional, exciting and able to flow on their own. We also found that ergonomic issues related to the heaviness of the VR headset, side adjustment straps in VR head-mounted display, and multiple buttons in controller need to be resolved in order to simplify the experience during VR assessment. We discussed the implications of these findings for four key stakeholders in the field : Researchers, Game Developers, Businesses, and Neuropsychological and allied practitioners, and provided insights on main areas wherein they could add value.

Conclusions:

Our study complements existing research on quantitative validation of games for cognitive assessment by contributing to holistic evidence in this emerging field.We strongly believe that all key stakeholders must actively co-operate among each other to enhance the current ecosystem of game-based cognitive assessment. Finally, we believe that results of our thematic analysis provide unique perspective on user experience from primary settings, and contribute to the technology acceptance research for VR-based cognitive games.