Deceptive patterns, dark patterns, and manipulative user interfaces (UI) are a widely used design strategy that manipulates users to act against their own interests in pursuit of shareholder aims. These patterns may particularly affect people with less education, visual impairments, and older adults. Yet, access is a critical feature of the user experience (UX), development standards, and law. We considered whether and how the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and related legislation, like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), could act as a tool against deceptive patterns. We used heuristic evaluation to analyze whether and how deceptive patterns violate or conform to these guidelines and legal statutes. Although statistical analysis revealed no significant differences by pattern type, we identified three patterns implicated by the WCAG guidelines: Countdown Timer, Auto-Play, and Hidden Information. We offer this approach as one tool in the fight against UI-based deception and in support of inclusive design.

Agender euphoria is a new term representing the powerful feelings of happiness, joy, and contentment derived from experiences in gender-free embodiments, spaces, and activities. People with and without agender and adjacent identities (e.g., genderless, gender-free, non-binary, gender-apathetic) may have such experiences under the right circumstances. Video games can offer gender minorities a safe haven for gender euphoric experiences. However, the possibility of agender euphoric experiences was unexplored. We considered this overlooked frame of self-actualization with 142 people who identified as having or desiring agender euphoric experiences. Using the critical incident technique (CIT), we uncovered how games and play experiences create (and inhibit) agender euphoria. We surface this experiential phenomenon and provide empirically-grounded criteria for the design of games to elicit agender euphoric experiences for everyone, but especially agender and agender adjacent players. This work adds to the growing critical literatures on marginalized experiences in games research and human-computer interaction.

The “gender” of intelligent agents, virtual characters, social robots, and other agentic machines has emerged as a fundamental topic in studies of people’s interactions with computers. Perceptions of agent gender can help explain user attitudes and behaviours—from preferences to toxicity to stereotyping—across a variety of systems and contexts of use. Yet, standards in capturing perceptions of agent gender do not exist. A scoping review was conducted to clarify how agent gender has been operationalized—labelled, defined, and measured—as a perceptual variable. One-third of studies manipulated but did not measure agent gender. Norms in operationalizations remain obscure, limiting comprehension of results, congruity in measurement, and comparability for meta-analyses. The dominance of the gender binary model and latent anthropocentrism have placed arbitrary limits on knowledge generation and reified the status quo. We contribute a systematically-developed and theory-driven meta-level framework that offers operational clarity and practical guidance for greater rigour and inclusivity.

Transparent and consistent reporting of user studies is essential for advancing scientific knowledge. In human-robot interaction (HRI), studies are often reported incompletely, even in top-tier venues, limiting proper evaluation, replication, and practical application of findings in practice. This study aimed to generate expert consensus on a reporting checklist for HRI user studies and provide a validated tool to improve transparency, reproducibility, and methodological rigor in the field, leading to easier translation of research into practice. A two-round Delphi study was conducted with 34 HRI experts from academia and industry from over 12 countries. An international panel of nine interdisciplinary experts first synthesized a preliminary list of 116 reporting items from the literature. Experts rated the importance of each item and provided qualitative feed- back. Consensus was defined as 70% agreement, and items were iteratively refined through anonymous online surveys. Overall, consensus was achieved on 106 items, encompassing both essential and context-dependent elements in nine domains. The resulting RUSH checklist (Reporting User Studies in Human-Robot Inter- action) provides the first community-endorsed, consensus-based reporting guideline for HRI user studies.

Visual representations of "the user" are a key part of academic papers in human-robot interaction (HRI). These visualizations can include photos of participants, drawings of users, or simulated personas. Critical analyses have revealed representation biases in scholarly work, often detectable in formal output like publications. Sampling biases, limitations in demographic reporting, and bias across researchers have been discovered. Yet, no work to date has considered the visualizations (drawings, photos, and other graphical representations) of the human side in the HRI equation. We surface representation biases in work from the flagship ACM/IEEE HRI conference: over-representation of younger light-skinned men with typical bodies, and under-representation of people with darker skin tones, women and gender-diverse people, people with disabilities, and people of various ages and sizes. We critically discuss these trends and offer suggestions for best practices in reporting.

Abstract Voice-based interaction is experiencing a second wind through the advent of machine learning (ML) techniques, affordable consumer products and renewed work on natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs). A growing body of work is exploring how users perceive new forms of computer-generated voices from qualitative and quantitative angles. However, critical voices have called for greater rigour, especially in confirming the voice as a manipulated variable, i.e. manipulation checks. We present three case studies that highlight the value of investing in rigorous manipulation checks for HCI researchers and designers. We demonstrate the importance of testing assumptions, the need for care and reflection in the design of response options and measurement and the advantages of more exploratory approaches to understanding user perceptions of and user experiences (UX) with voice phenomena. Through these case studies, we raise awareness, empirically justify and critically assess the value of manipulation checks for voice UX research and beyond.

Conversational agents that mimic people have raised questions about the ethics of anthropomorphizing machines with human social identity cues. Critics have also questioned assumptions of identity neutrality in humanlike agents. Recent work has revealed that intersectional Japanese pronouns can elicit complex and sometimes evasive impressions of agent identity. Yet, the role of other "neutral" non-pronominal self-referents (NPSR) and voice as a socially expressive medium remains unexplored. In a crowdsourcing study, Japanese participants (N = 204) evaluated three ChatGPT voices (Juniper, Breeze, and Ember) using seven self-referents. We found strong evidence of voice gendering alongside the potential of intersectional self-referents to evade gendering, i.e., ambiguity through neutrality and elusiveness. Notably, perceptions of age and formality intersected with gendering as per sociolinguistic theories, especially boku and watakushi. This work provides a nuanced take on agent identity perceptions and champions intersectional and culturally-sensitive work on voice agents.

Kawaii" is the Japanese concept of cute, which carries sociocultural connotations related to social identities and emotional responses.Yet, virtually all work to date has focused on the visual side of kawaii, including in studies of computer agents and social robots.In pursuit of formalizing the new science of kawaii vocalics, we explored what elements of voice relate to kawaii and how they might be manipulated, manually and automatically.We conducted a four-phase study (grand 𝑁 = 512) with two varieties of computer voices: text-to-speech (TTS) and game character voices.We found kawaii "sweet spots" through manipulation of fundamental and formant frequencies, but only for certain voices and to a certain extent.Findings also suggest a ceiling effect for the kawaii vocalics of certain voices.We offer empirical validation of the preliminary kawaii vocalics model and an elementary method for manipulating kawaii perceptions of computer voice.

Voice interaction has entered daily life. Yet, the measurement of voice user experience (voice UX) remains underdeveloped. We took a consensus-based approach to the creation of a new instrument grounded in the work of voice UX researchers. For this, we conducted a systemic review of the literature from ACM, IEEE, and Web of Science ( ) to gather a corpus of instruments, measures, and methodological perspectives. We then carried out two validation studies on a range of computer voices, showing through exploratory ( ) and confirmatory factor analyses ( ) that five underlying factors unify the consensus-derived measures. We offer the 24-item Voice Experience Inventory (VOXI) alongside three comprehensive frameworks on key independent and dependent variables and their relationships, anchored to the material that guided our instrument development process. This work represents a timely and community-centred path towards rigorous and standardized measurement of voice UX.

Mobile games have gained immense popularity due to their accessibility, allowing people to play anywhere, anytime. Dark patterns and deceptive designs (DPs) have been found in these and other gaming platforms within certain cultural contexts. Here, we explored DPs in the onboarding experiences of free-to-play mobile games from China and Japan. We identified several unique patterns and mapped their relative prevalence. We also found that game developers often employ combinations of DPs as a strategy (“DP Combos”) and use elements that, while not inherently manipulative, can enhance the impact of known patterns (“DP Enhancers”). Guided by these findings, we then developed an enriched ontology for categorizing deceptive game design patterns into classes and subclasses. This research contributes to understanding deceptive game design patterns and offers insights for future studies on cultural dimensions and ethical game design in general.

People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we explored the notion of “mukokuseki,” a visual design characteristic defined by the absence of visual cues to national and ethnic identity in Japanese cultural exports. In a two-phase categorization study ( \(n=212\) ), American ( \(n=110\) ) and Japanese ( \(n=92\) ) participants rated a random selection of nine robot stimuli from America and Japan, plus multinational Pepper. We found evidence of made-in and two kinds of mukokuseki effects. We offer suggestions for the visual design of mukokuseki robots that may interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Our findings have implications for robots and social identity, the viability of robotic exports, and the use of robots internationally.

ChatGPT is a conversational agent built on a large language model. Trained on a significant portion of human output, ChatGPT can mimic people to a degree. As such, we need to consider what social identities ChatGPT simulates (or can be designed to simulate). In this study, we explored the case of identity simulation through Japanese first-person pronouns, which are tightly connected to social identities in intersectional ways, i.e., intersectional pronouns. We conducted a controlled online experiment where people from two regions in Japan (Kanto and Kinki) witnessed interactions with ChatGPT using ten sets of first-person pronouns. We discovered that pronouns alone can evoke perceptions of social identities in ChatGPT at the intersections of gender, age, region, and formality, with caveats. This work highlights the importance of pronoun use for social identity simulation, provides a language-based methodology for culturally-sensitive persona development, and advances the potential of intersectional identities in intelligent agents.

Maldaimonic game experiences occur when people engage in personally fulfilling play through egocentric, destructive, and/or exploitative acts. Initial qualitative work verified this orientation and experiential construct for English-speaking Westerners. In this comparative mixed methods study, we explored whether and how maldaimonic game experiences and orientations play out in Japan, an Eastern gaming capital that may have cultural values incongruous with the Western philosophical basis underlying maldaimonia. We present findings anchored to the initial frameworks on maldaimonia in game experiences that show little divergence between the Japanese and US cohorts. We also extend the qualitative findings with quantitative measures on affect, player experience, and the related constructs of hedonia and eudaimonia. We confirm this novel construct for Japan and set the stage for scale development.

Juiciness is visual pizzazz used to improve player experience and engagement in games. Most research has focused on juicy particle effects. However, text effects are also commonly used in games, albeit not always juiced up. One type is onomatopoeia, a well-defined element of human language that has been translated to visual media, such as comic books and games. Another is semantic text, often used to provide performance feedback in games. In this work, we explored the relationship between juiciness and text effects, aiming to replicate juicy user experiences with text-based juice and combining particle and text juice. We show in a multi-phase within-subjects experiment that users rate juicy text effects similarly to particles effects, with comparable performance, and more reliable feedback. We also hint at potential improvement in user experience when both are combined, and how text stimuli may be perceived differently than other visual ones. We contribute empirical findings on the juicy-text connection in the context of visual effects for interactive media.

Dark patterns are deceptive and malicious properties of user interfaces that lead the end-user to do something different from intended or expected. While now a key topic in critical computing, most work has been conducted in Western contexts. Japan, with its booming app market, is a relatively uncharted context that offers culturally- and linguistically-sensitive differences in design standards, contexts of use, values, and language, all of which could influence the presence and expression of dark patterns. In this work, we analyzed 200 popular mobile apps in the Japanese market. We found that most apps had dark patterns, with an average of 3.9 per app. We also identified a new class of dark pattern: “Linguistic Dead-Ends” in the forms of “Untranslation” and “Alphabet Soup.” We outline the implications for design and research practice, especially for future cross-cultural research on dark patterns.

Critical scholarship has elevated the problem of gender bias in data sets used to train virtual assistants (VAs). Most work has focused on explicit biases in language, especially against women, girls, femme-identifying people, and genderqueer folk; implicit associations through word embeddings; and limited models of gender and masculinities, especially toxic masculinities, conflation of sex and gender, and a sex/gender binary framing of the masculine as diametric to the feminine. Yet, we must also interrogate how masculinities are “coded” into language and the assumption of “male” as the linguistic default: implicit masculine biases. To this end, we examined two natural language processing (NLP) data sets. We found that when gendered language was present, so were gender biases and especially masculine biases. Moreover, these biases related in nuanced ways to the NLP context. We offer a new dictionary called AVA that covers ambiguous associations between gendered language and the language of VAs.

As the field of human-agent interaction (HAI) matures, it becomes essential to acknowledge and address the differing multidisciplinary approaches that support it to favor a common interdisciplinary understanding, thus adopting a broader methodological and epistemological perspective. The field of HAI recognizes that agents are not merely isolated technologies but embedded within society. Consequently, the advancement of HAI is not only part of an engineering problem but one that must be informed by diverse disciplines such as legal, philosophical, psychological, design, medical, and sociological, among others. The goal of this workshop is to provide a space where participants can explore the diverse methodologies that compose HAI, reflect on diverse research practices –with their strengths and limitations–, and provide a safe environment where participants can disseminate their research in clear and engaging terms, rather than technical, to foster interdisciplinary collaborations.

Japan faces many challenges related to its aging society, including increasing rates of cognitive decline in the population and a shortage of caregivers. Efforts have begun to explore solutions using artificial intelligence (AI), especially socially embodied intelligent agents and robots that can communicate with people. Yet, there has been little research on the compatibility of these agents with older adults in various everyday situations. To this end, we conducted a user study to evaluate a robot that functions as a facilitator for a group conversation protocol designed to prevent cognitive decline. We modified the robot to use backchannelling, a natural human way of speaking, to increase receptiveness of the robot and enjoyment of the group conversation experience. We conducted a cross-generational study with young adults and older adults. Qualitative analyses indicated that younger adults perceived the backchannelling version of the robot as kinder, more trustworthy, and more acceptable than the non-backchannelling robot. Finally, we found that the robot’s backchannelling elicited nonverbal backchanneling in older participants.

When deploying robots, its physical characteristics, role, and tasks are often fixed. Such factors can also be associated with gender stereotypes among humans, which then transfer to the robots. One factor that can induce gendering but is comparatively easy to change is the robot’s voice. Designing voice in a way that interferes with fixed factors might therefore be a way to reduce gender stereotypes in human-robot interaction contexts. To this end, we have conducted a video-based online study to investigate how factors that might inspire gendering of a robot interact. In particular, we investigated how giving the robot a gender-ambiguous voice can affect perception of the robot. We compared assessments (n=111) of videos in which a robot’s body presentation and occupation mis/matched with human gender stereotypes. We found evidence that a gender-ambiguous voice can reduce gendering of a robot endowed with stereotypically feminine or masculine attributes. The results can inform more just robot design while opening new questions regarding the phenomenon of robot gendering.

Wizard of Oz (WoZ) as a prototyping method has been used to simulate intelligent user interfaces, particularly for speech-based systems. However, as our societies' expectations on artificial intelligence (AI) grows, the question remains whether a single Wizard is sufficient for it to simulate smarter systems and more complex interactions. Optimistic visions of 'what artificial intelligence (AI) can do' places demands on WoZ platforms to simulate smarter systems and more complex interactions. This raises the question of whether the typical approach of employing a single Wizard is sufficient. Moreover, while existing work has employed multiple Wizards in WoZ studies, a multi-Wizard approach has not been systematically studied in terms of feasibility, effectiveness, and challenges. We offer Wizundry, a real-time, web-based WoZ platform that allows multiple Wizards to collaboratively operate a speech-to-text based system remotely. We outline the design and technical specifications of our open-source platform, which we iterated over two design phases. We report on two studies in which participant-Wizards were tasked with negotiating how to cooperatively simulate an interface that can handle natural speech for dictation and text editing as well as other intelligent text processing tasks. We offer qualitative findings on the Multi-Wizard experience for Dyads and Triads of Wizards. Our findings reveal the promises and challenges of the multi-Wizard approach and open up new research questions.

Communication between people is characterized by a broad range of nonverbal cues. Transferring these cues into the design of robots and other artificial agents that interact with people may foster more natural, inviting, and accessible experiences. In this article, we offer a series of definitive nonverbal codes for human–robot interaction (HRI) that address the five human sensory systems (visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) drawn from the field of communication studies. We discuss how these codes can be translated into design patterns for HRI using a curated sample of the communication studies and HRI literatures. As nonverbal codes are an essential mode in human communication, we argue that integrating robotic nonverbal codes in HRI will afford robots a feeling of “aliveness” or “social agency” that would otherwise be missing. We end with suggestions for research directions to stimulate work on nonverbal communication within the field of HRI and improve communication between people and robots.

Gender/ing guides how we view ourselves, the world around us, and each other-including non-humans.Critical voices have raised the alarm about stereotyped gendering in the design of socially embodied artificial agents like voice assistants, conversational agents, and robots.Yet, little is known about how this plays out in research and to what extent.As a first step, we critically reviewed the case of Pepper, a gender-ambiguous humanoid robot.We conducted a systematic review (n=75) involving meta-synthesis and content analysis, examining how participants and researchers gendered Pepper through stated and unstated signifiers and pronoun usage.We found that ascriptions of Pepper's gender were inconsistent, limited, and at times discordant, with little evidence of conscious gendering and some indication of researcher influence on participant gendering.We offer six challenges driving the state of affairs and a practical framework coupled with a critical checklist for centering gender in research on artificial agents.

Gender is a primary characteristic by which people organize themselves. Previous research has shown that people tend to unknowingly ascribe gender to robots based on features of their embodiment. Yet, robots are not necessarily ascribed the same, or any, gender by different people. Indeed, robots may be ascribed non-human genders or used as “genderless” alternatives. This underlies the notion of gender neutrality in robots: neither masculine nor feminine but somewhere in between or even beyond gender. Responding to calls for gender as a locus of study within robotics, we offer a framework for conducting an open living review to be updated periodically as work emerges. Significantly, we provide an open, formalized submission process and open access dataset of research on gender neutrality in robots. This novel and timely approach to consensus-building is expected to pave the way for similar endeavours on other key topics within human-robot interaction research.

Gender is a social framework through which people organize themselves-and non-human subjects, including robots. Research stretching back decades has found evidence that people tend to gender artificial agents unwittingly, even with the slightest cue of humanlike features in voice, body, role, and other social features. This has led to the notion of gender neutrality in robots: ways in which we can avoid gendering robots in line with human models, as well explorations of extra-human genders. This rapid review critically surveyed the literature to capture the state of art on gender neutrality in robots that interact with people. We present findings on theory, methods, results, and reflexivity. We interrogate the very idea that robot gender/ing can be neutral and explore alternate ways of approaching gendering through the design and study of robots interacting with people.

Addressing societal problems is complex; little is known about which paths or approaches are successful. We discuss what is involved in knowing when and how and for whom change needs to occur, as well as the impact of doing so at scale-especially when novelty and academic contributions may be compromised. To this end, we present a 'scaling up' framework based on a societal project where we worked with multiple stakeholders to improve food waste recycling rates in a housing estate. We propose three main factors involved in scaling up: (i) 'the people,' through reimagining roles and relationships, (ii) 'the method,' requiring flexibility in design and research, and (iii) 'the impact,' informing new measures by handing over the evaluation. We reflect on the challenges, dilemmas, and successes encountered, as well as discuss the benefit of 'handing over' the evaluation process to gather scalable metrics based on economic modelling.

An extended design and evaluation framework of eudaimonia (personal growth, expressiveness) and hedonia (pleasure, comfort) was applied to a cooperative game for older adults who rely on power mobility. The purpose was to address two psychosocial well-being needs (perceptions of performance mastery and empathy enhancement) through a game with an interaction format that augments the experience of powered chair use: mixed reality with power mobility-based interaction and movement. Two versions of the game—one in a mixed reality format and one without—were created to evaluate the efficacy of using this framework and explore relevant user experience factors. Qualitative findings suggest that the mixed reality version of the game elicited eudaimonic experiences, where the older adult participants who were typically reliant on power mobility perceived a positive change in performance mastery while their partners, who were not reliant on power mobility developed a greater appreciation for everyday powered chair use. Further, a role reversal, where the elders took on a ‘caregiving’ role in the context of powered chair expertise, was observed. Moreover, inferential findings showed evidence of a predictive relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic orientations, psychological well-being, and game engagement, regardless of age, disability status, and game version.

Japan is a super-aging society, one marked by a steadily silvering population and shrinking birthrates. Social effects range from a decline in intergenerational homes to new tensions between the generations as elders delay retirement or return to work. Towards improving relations between the generations, two versions of an inclusive, intergenerational game employing “shared action,” or time-movement synchrony, were developed: a finger-based version inspired by medical exercise technology from gerontology and a smart shoe-based version as a familiar form factor. A series of three exploratory studies were conducted with young Japanese adults and elders. Findings suggest that the foot version was most suitable overall and reveal initial, complex effects of age and gender on empathy measures that can inform affective computing initiatives within and beyond the cultural milieu of modern Japan.

With advancements in robotics, systems featuring wearable robotic arms teleoperated by a third party are appearing. An important aspect of these systems is the visual feedback provided to the third party operator. This can be achieved by placing a wearable camera on the robotic arm's “host,” or Main Body Operator (MBO), but such a setup makes the visual feedback dependant on the movements of the main body. Here we introduce a VR system called Parasitic Body to explore a VR shared body concept representative of the wearable robotic arms “host” (the MBO) and of the teleoperator (here called the Parasite Body Operator (PBO)). 2 users jointly operate a shared virtual body with a third arm: The MBO controls the main body and the PBO controls a third arm sticking out from the left shoulder of the main body. We focused here on the perspective dependency of the PBO (indeed, the PBO view is dependant of the movement of the MBO) in a “finding and reaching” task.

Existing platforms for sharing locative digital content rely on the use of mobile phones for accessing the content. This can be a major deterrent to wider public access and also hinders immediacy and 'in the moment' discoverability. Building on previous work in situated public installations, we developed Pinsight, a novel platform for enabling end-users, such as local communities, to create and share digital content in-situ with public audiences through physical interactive devices. Pinsight is based on a set of design principles that focus on supporting both the expressiveness of content creators and the appeal to public audiences. This paper describes the design of the platform and how it supports sharing knowledge in ways different to conventional media. Through preliminary evaluations and two in-the-wild studies, we explore how such a situated technology can be used by different user groups (content designers, history communities, local residents) for sharing content with public audiences (visitors, pedestrians, residents) in different contexts.

The advent of affordable and powerful mobile technology has allowed for explorations in mixed reality that merges virtual and physical space. However, the social and entertainment value and efficacy of mixed reality platforms for adult powered chair users has not been widely explored. In this article, we introduce the Mobility Games project, which aims to produce a series of inclusive entertainment technologies and services for people who use powered chairs. We describe our first offering: an accessible, social mixed reality game for co-located mobile play in everyday spaces. Findings from two exploratory field studies and a post hoc observer survey show that adult powered chair users found the game to be entertaining and used a variety of path strategies as they learned to play the game. An initial set of theoretically and empirically informed guidelines for making mobile mixed reality games accessible to adult powered chair users with diverse abilities is proposed.

Gamification has drawn the attention of academics, practitioners and business professionals in domains as diverse as education, information studies, human–computer interaction, and health. As yet, the term remains mired in diverse meanings and contradictory uses, while the concept faces division on its academic worth, underdeveloped theoretical foundations, and a dearth of standardized guidelines for application. Despite widespread commentary on its merits and shortcomings, little empirical work has sought to validate gamification as a meaningful concept and provide evidence of its effectiveness as a tool for motivating and engaging users in non-entertainment contexts. Moreover, no work to date has surveyed gamification as a field of study from a human–computer studies perspective. In this paper, we present a systematic survey on the use of gamification in published theoretical reviews and research papers involving interactive systems and human participants. We outline current theoretical understandings of gamification and draw comparisons to related approaches, including alternate reality games (ARGs), games with a purpose (GWAPs), and gameful design. We present a multidisciplinary review of gamification in action, focusing on empirical findings related to purpose and context, design of systems, approaches and techniques, and user impact. Findings from the survey show that a standard conceptualization of gamification is emerging against a growing backdrop of empirical participants-based research. However, definitional subjectivity, diverse or unstated theoretical foundations, incongruities among empirical findings, and inadequate experimental design remain matters of concern. We discuss how gamification may to be more usefully presented as a subset of a larger effort to improve the user experience of interactive systems through gameful design. We end by suggesting points of departure for continued empirical investigations of gamified practice and its effects.

Games are an important part of popular culture and have successfully engaged audiences from different age groups [8]. This has caused many educators to start thinking of different ways to infuse game-based techniques (playing or construction) to enhance education. Over the past five years, there has been several research efforts on curriculum development and the evaluation of game construction and playing methods to promote STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) concepts to middle and high school students. In this paper, we report on a new study following the lead of previous efforts. In particular, we were granted a block within Frank Hurt High School by the Surrey school district for which to develop a game construction-based curriculum as a basis for computer science education within the school, replacing a traditional computer science class. From February till June 2011 students were taught elementary programming using GameMaker, a digital game development tool. In addition to collecting students' overall impressions, we also evaluated students' technical competency (using tests) and self-efficacy (using surveys) at the start and end of the semester. Our findings show that the curriculum had a positive, statistically significant effect on concept comprehension, which suggests that the curriculum was effective for understanding computer science and game design concepts. In this paper we present the course structure, methods, and evaluation as a contribution.

This paper introduces a collaborative learning game called Futura: The Sustainable Futures Game, which is implemented on a custom multi-touch digital tabletop platform. The goal of the game is to work with other players to support a growing population as time passes while minimizing negative impact on the environment. The design-oriented research goal of the project is to explore the novel design space of collaborative, multi-touch tabletop games for learning. Our focus is on identifying and understanding key design factors of importance in creating opportunities for learning. We use four theoretical perspectives as lenses through which we conceptualize our design intentions and inform our analysis. These perspectives are: experiential learning, constructivist learning, collaborative learning, and game theory. In this paper we discuss design features that enable collaborative learning, present the results from two observational studies, and compare our findings to other guidelines in order to contribute to the growing body of empirically derived design guidelines for tangible, embodied and embedded interaction.