(IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 11, No. 5, 2020 199 | Page www.ijacsa.thesai.org Play-Centric Designing of a Serious Game Prototype for Low Vision Children Nurul Izzah Othman 1 , Nor Azan Mat Zin 2 *, Hazura Mohamed 3 Faculty of Information Science and Technology The National University of Malaysia 43600 Bangi, Malaysia Abstract—Currently, with the advancement of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), gaming industry becomes one of the fastest growing industries. This trend leads to development of serious games as alternative tool for creating effective learning experience. However, most educational applications such as serious games mainly used visuals such graphics and animations that pose challenges for low vision children. Visually impaired users especially children with low vision would face difficulty using the applications. They have problems to see highly visual elements of the games. Accessibility refers to how a certain software or application is accessible to disabled users. Several accessibility aspects should be considered when designing user interfaces for children with low vision. Thus, a game designed to fulfill their needs is needed. However, the challenge of serious game design is not only to consider users’ accessibility needs, but also the playability aspects as well so that the visually impaired children can enjoy playing regardless of their disabilities. This paper presents a study on designing a low fidelity serious game prototype for low vision children using play-centric design approach, focusing on playability to obtain feedback from low vision children. Then, based on users’ feedbacks, the game prototype will be refined to improve the game design. Keywords—Serious game; play-centric design; accessibility; low vision; low fidelity prototype I. INTRODUCTION The development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) leads to the gaming industry becoming one of the fastest growing industries. Games become the choice of younger generation. Today, games are important for leisure activities of most children. The game features will make learning become interesting and rewarding for children [1]. This trend leads to the development of serious games around the world. Serious games act as an alternative tool for creating learning experiences [2]. Serious games are digital games that have been designed with goals beyond entertainment such as for communication, defense, training, healthcare, and marketing [3]. The purpose of a serious game is basically to educate users while enabling an enjoyable experience [4]. As an example, serious games have been designed for training purposes. InfoSecure is a serious game designed to create awareness on information security [5]. Serious games are also used for health-related problems including rehabilitation, neurological disabilities, psychomotor coordination, speech problems, and obesity [6], as in the case of Kinect game for autistic rehabilitation. Besides, serious games have also been implemented in learning [7]–[9]. In learning, serious games provide benefits because they are fun and motivate students to participate in the learning activities [5]. However, how far the serious game is accessible to the disabled user is not widely studied. Accessibility refers to how a certain software or application is accessible to disabled users. According to [10], accessibility refers to how disabled user is enabled to use ICT systems, applications, and websites. Accessibility refers to ICT systems or applications that are designed and developed so that user with disabilities can also use them. They could perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the ICT systems. Accessibility also enables products to be more beneficial for all users and makes products more user friendly to everyone [11]. Accessibility encompasses auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual components[12]. Different types of disability may become a barrier in accessing ICT applications. For example, a user with hearing impairment has difficulties to access audio while a visually impaired user has difficulties to access visual information. They have different accessibility requirements due to their disabilities. Therefore, ICT applications should be designed with the consideration of accessibility aspect so that the application can be used by users with disabilities. The user interface of ICT application is designed based on certain disabilities such as physical, cognitive, audio, and visual. For users with physical disabilities, alternative environment should be designed instead of using mouse or input to computers because they would encounter difficulties using the tools. Users with cognitive disabilities require suitable user interface to support their cognitive disabilities. Meanwhile, hearing impaired users need graphical elements on the user interface as an alternative to audio due to their disability to access audio elements. On the other hand, visual impairment may cause difficulties to access graphical elements on the user interface. Thus, visually impaired user needs audio as a visual substitute on the user interface. Most ICT applications use graphical based interfaces. Therefore, visually impaired users especially children with low vision would face difficulty using the applications. Low vision is one of the visual impairments that causes a person to encounter difficulties in performing daily activities. Low vision occurs when the visual acuity decreases and can not be corrected by glasses or contact lenses. The level sight of a person who has low vision does not exceed 6/60 or 20/200 [13]. As a result, they have problems to see visual elements *Corresponding Author