Applying Participatory Design Theory to Develop a Game to Enhance Personal Help and Social Skills in Children with Autism

Most developmental games are designed based on specialists' perspectives only. The resulting games are often mismatched with the understanding and interest of target users. As a result, the effectiveness of the games may be limited. In this study, we applied participatory design theory to develop the game to enhance personal help and social skills in children with autism and reported the results. We designed the game based on the collaboration among specialists, including occupational therapists, game designers, and graphic designers, together with the participation of autistic users. Because autistic users have limited communication, we employed three methods (demonstration, interview, and observation) to obtain users' opinions. The results from 3 autistic participants showed that the participation of autistic users helped us design a complete and suitable game for autistic users' daily life.