Realistic boccia game simulator adapted for people with disabilities or motor disorders: architecture and preliminary usability study

Abstract

Over the last decades, Serious Games have gained increased impor tance, mainly due to the evolution and expansion of video games and its appli cation in multiple areas. Integration in the world of sport is one of the solutions that individuals with disabilities or motor disorders develop to feel more socially integrated, more independent and confident with themselves. Boccia is a Paraly mpic sport that is increasingly getting more attention around the world. This has contributed for the objectives of this project since it attracts these patients a lot more easily and including it in the Serious Games category enables them to develop and rehabilitate their cognitive capabilities. It will allow the users being dynamic, holding their attention and motivating them instead of the traditional cognitive rehabilitation processes that quickly become repetitive and discour aging. This paper describes a realistic Boccia game simulator adapted for people with disabilities or motor disorders still on development that aims to integrate a set of features that include real physics, multimodal user interface and social features (diversion, rehabilitation, competition and improvement). These features can be used to enhance the interest of non-practitioners of the sport and to improve the training conditions of Boccia athletes. Results observed in an experiment with real Boccia game components indicate that the simulator offers great similarity to the reality with the maximum difference between the measures obtained in both being 10 cm.