Intergenerational Physical and Cultural Play Systems

Abstract

Due to global aging population, issues of family intergenerational communication are becoming increasingly important. Play has many proven benefits for intergenerational communication. However, prior literature and our own initial survey with Singapore local grandparents, parents and children reviewed that there is currently limited digital play and entertainment systems that are designed for their simultaneous consumption, despite their eagerness to participate in those activities together. While children are brought up with new technologies for communication and entertainment, grandparent, parent and children interaction is often limited to traditional media. This research aims to design and engineer novel interactive play systems that would facilitate intergenerational communication. Multiple-case study methodology is adopted. Two cases of intergenerational play, physical play and cultural play were designed and studied in this dissertation. Design-oriented research approach was employed in this research, to develop the research prototypes, while involving the intergenerational users throughout the design process. The research prototypes were carefully engineered to meet the requirements of the users. In depth user studies and experiments were carried out to identify and validate usability and interaction issues and to uncover possible design principles. There are three research contributions in this dissertation: novel design and engineering of a physical play system, which allows grandparents, parents and children to simultaneously engage in games using their full body movements, and through a virtual game world; novel design and engineering of a cultural play system which allows parents and children to explore cultural values through a virtual chat agent, modeled after Confucius knowledge and teachings; uncover design principles from user studies of the two systems developed, to inform future researchers interested in designing better media experiences for an intergenerational audience.