Developing a serious game for children with diabetes

Abstract

A Serious Game has been developed for preschool-age children who have been newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The name of this game is “for kids with diabetes” the shorter version is “4KidsDiab”. The 4KidsDiab program consists of two parts, an editor and a game part. The editor part is for the parents and they can adjust the game according to their child’s daily allowable carbohydrate meals. Parents can upload pictures and data of meal/food into the game database. The main menu of the game contains four games for children: “True/False quiz”, “Which food has more/fewer carbs”, “Take it to your plate” and the reward game: “Feed the figure” game. This paper shows the design, development and evaluation process of the game. The evaluation process has been based on the System Usability Scale. It is an innovative game because it is useful for children who have multiple diseases e.g. diabetes and gluten or lactose sensitivity.