Evaluating play-personas of an educational 3D digital game for university students to learn Portuguese as a foreign Language

Abstract

This work is part of a user centered design development research with 106 international university students from 27 nationalities who were living in Brazil, Mexico and Portugal, which resulted in the game design and programming of the 3D Adventure Game to learn Foreign Languages “Back to the knowledge – the foreign student and the book of language and culture”. With the proposal of exploring a new approach of learning a foreign language in autonomy through an educational game and its development according to the needs and expectations of its targeted audience; this two years project started in 2014 by conducting interviews for creation of university students’ Personas. This article presents the last users evaluations in the perspective of Play-Personas. The quantitatively and qualitative analysis of ten students play ways compiled player preferences and behaviors in terms of interaction and navigation in five Play-Personas and allowed to contrast them to the initial Persona.