Concepts and Mechanics for Educational Mini-Games A Human-Centred Conceptual Design Approach involving Adolescent Learners and Domain Experts

This article reports on two conceptual design sessions in which concepts for educational mini-games were generated through a human-centred approach. First, cocreation sessions were held with 14 adolescents between 14 and 16 years old in order to gain insight into their preferences for educational games for language learning. During these sessions, 11 game concepts were generated, revealing a classification of concepts for games oriented towards, on the one hand, formal language learning and, on the other hand, more informal communication with other players or in-game characters. Second, brainstorm sessions were organized with six domain experts in order to reveal which mechanics are most appropriate for the design of mini-games for a variety of educational programmes. These sessions resulted in 28 ideas reflecting three game mechanics particularly suited for educational mini-games tailored to adolescent learners.

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