Training Socially Responsible Engineers by Developing Accessible Video Games

Abstract

University has an active social responsibility that is addressed both by acting responsibly as institution and by transferring this ethical duty to the students. Our proposal is achieving the social inclusion of disabled people, as part of the social responsibility of future engineers, through the realization of the final degree project in collaboration with associations of disabled users, in particular through the design and development of adapted video games. This paper presents our experience in developing these projects in collaboration with an association of users with cerebral palsy. The objective is training the students in the social responsibility but also solving some problems of inclusion in the collective of disabled users (such as the access to digital entertainment) and carrying out an in-depth study about the interaction problems for users with cerebral palsy, providing concrete and practical solutions. The methodology for this experience is Action Research, with four research stages (plan, implement, evaluate and reflect) that are iteratively repeated. Following this methodology, three iterations have been carried out and a fourth one is planned. As a result, three adapted video games have been developed and a guide for adapting video games to people with cerebral palsy has been defined. This experience has served to introduce the aspects of social responsibility in the curricula of engineers in a very effective way and to study and design new ways of making video games accessible to disabled people, giving them the chance to exercise their right to entertainment.