Andrea Grimes, Vasudhara Kantroo and Rebecca E. Grinter (2010). Let's Play! Mobile Health Games for Adults. Proc. of UBICOMP 2010. (Link is to Ms.Grimes website, and you can find the full paper on the publications page.)
Let me sum up the gist of the idea, rather than going into the details of the paper, as there are some fundamental problems with the study. The gist is that a casual game might be better suited for games that aim to improve behavior. The behavior here was based on healthy eating, and the research targeted African American individuals because of the high incidence of diabetes among that population. The game was designed with food items that such folks would find in their neighborhoods, including soul food type items, sandwiches, etc.
The critical part for me was the introduction of the casual game premise. I had been structuring my thesis idea around epistemic games, thinking only in terms of long story arc type things, and listening to this proposal has given me an alternate idea. I'm definitely going to need to start with an exploratory study to examine which of those two paths is going to be the better choice for me, I think. Additionally, discussing the shape of the study and what might have been a better question for the study format has helped me think about how to structure my own studies to avoid those types of critiques.
I'm likely going to blog about a few more of the papers that were interesting or that I discussed in a critical fashion with Leilah as well.
cool.
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