Game Usability Heuristics Evaluation Approach for Speech Therapy Mobile Application Games

In this paper, we present an approach used to evaluate speech therapy mobile application games using a usability heuristics evaluation method for speech delay children. Designing a mobile application specifically for children with speech delay is always a challenge. A well-designed user interface and game flow are vital in a therapy game to promote self-learning and therapy by exploration in the game. There have been many proposed and used usability evaluation methods, however, heuristics evaluation strategy was used in our study as this method was specifically designed and developed to evaluate mobile application games. There are three components in the heuristics models which are Game Usability, Mobility, and Gameplay. In our experiment, we were evaluating a local prototype of speech therapy mobile application using the game usability component because we focus more on the user interface designs. The target group of this study was pre-school children aged 3 to 6 years old with speech delay. Questionnaires were developed based on the game usability heuristics and distributed to their parents or caregivers. Interviews were also conducted to obtain their comments and feedbacks. The study results showed that the game usability heuristics are useful in identifying potential issues and problems in user interface designs of the prototype. In addition, the results also revealed that the heuristics strategy is useful in producing a set of effective design guidelines for mobile application games.