Designing Usable Learning Games for the Humanities: Five Research Dimensions

A fair amount of research suggests that video games can be
effective tools for learning complex subject matter in specifi c
domains (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Ricci, Salas, & Cannon-
Bowers, 1996; Randel et al., 1992; Fiore et al., 2007; Garris &
Ahlers et al., 2002). Although there has been much work in
situating “serious gaming” (Sawyer, 2002) as a legitimate vehicle
for learning in all types of disciplines, there is no central source
for research on crafting and designing what is considered to
be a usable game for the humanities. In this paper, we discuss
research issues related to the design of “usable” humanitiesbased
video games and situate those research questions along
fi ve interrelated dimensions.
We fi rst provide our defi nition of usability as used in this
context. A usable humanities game is a game which is both
functionally capable in terms of an interface and its human
interactions as well as appropriately designed to support the
types of learning objectives attached to its scenarios or levels.
This defi nition is formed from the convergence of traditional
interface usability and learning effectiveness. We support our
delineation of research questions using theoretical work from
scholars writing about gaming as well as applied examples
from our own research and game development prototypes.
Drawing from three years of experience building a variety
of games, and literature culled from our various fi elds, we
discuss some of the unique research questions that designing
for the humanities pose for scholars and game designers. We
separate these questions across fi ve dimensions, each with
representative humanities learning questions: 1. Participation: how can we encourage diverse groups
of students and researchers to interact together in virtual
space? How can we design a space that is appealing and
equitable to both genders and to a diverse range of
demographic profi les?
2. Mechanics: how do you design algorithms that are
applicable to the types of tasks commonly sought in
humanities courses? For instance, how might one develop an
algorithm to “score” morally relative gameplay decisions in
an ethical dilemma?
3. Ontology: how is a player’s self-image challenged when
shifting from a real to what Gee (2003) calls a projected
identity, and how is this process changed through the use
of varying perspectives such as fi rst-person or third-person
perspective?
4. Hermeneutics: how do we probe the hidden layers that
exist between game worlds, source content, and human
computer interfaces? What “voices” are encouraged in
virtual worlds, and what voices are repressed within this
rhetorical space?
5. Culture: how are the cultural facets of primary source
content mediated through the process of digitization?
To consider these dimensions, we craft a theoretical base
formed from a wide range of researchers such as Gee (2003),
Prensky (2001), Squire (2002), and Jenkins (2006a, 2006b). From
Gee, we draw inspiration from his discussion of well-designed
games and his exploration of the implicit learning occurring in
several different genres of digital video games. Much of Gee’s
work has involved applying insights from the cognitive sciences
to traditional humanities domains such as literature in order
to explore identity, problem solving skills, verbal and nonverbal
learning, and the transfer of learned abilities from one task to
another. Marc Prensky notes that musical learning games in
the humanities have been used for hundreds of years -- Bach’s
Well Tempered Clavier and The Art of the Fugue are his “learning
games,” simple to complex musical exercises that build skill.
Prensky’s work also informs our historical analysis as well
as insights from the pioneers working in the fi eld of serious
gaming for military applications.
Jenkins’ work in applying the interests of gaming fans as critical
lenses provides insight for both formative guidelines and posttask
measures of “success” in learning game environments.
These gaming discourse communities often form wildly active
and infl uential fan groups, and these groups cultivate their
own forms of expression and understanding through complex
jargon, virtual initiations, and ritualistic rules and procedures
in virtual interaction. Gaming environments and virtual worlds
have also been shown to offer rich sources of material for
investigating notions of gender, race, ethnicity, and cultural
identity (Berman & Bruckman, 2001; Squire, 2002).
Building on the work of these scholars, others have extended
these general notions of digital game based learning to account
for specifi c curricula or learning objectives such as media
project management for humanities computing (McDaniel et
al., 2006). To build these humanities learning games, we have
assembled an interdisciplinary team composed of faculty
members from Digital Media, English, and Philosophy. Individuals
from this group have worked in a variety of capacities, as script
writers, artists, programmers, and producers. Undergraduate
and graduate students, in both classroom and research lab
roles, have worked and contributed to each of these games
in varying capacities. Five different games have been produced
through these collaborations:
1. Discover Babylon (Lucey-Roper, 2006), a game produced
by the Federation of American Scientists, the Walters
Art Museum in Baltimore, and UCLA’s Cuneiform Digital
Library Initiative (CDLI). One of our team members
developed the storyline for this game.
2. The Carol Mundy Underground Railroad game (Greenwood-
Ericksen et al., 2006) examines issues of African-American
history and culture and leads a player on an adventure from
a Southern plantation to safety in the North through the
Underground Railroad’s system of safehouses. This was a
“modded” game built atop Neverwinter Nights.
3. The Turkey Maiden (Underberg, forthcoming) is an
educational computer game project based on a version
of Cinderella collected by folklorist Ralph Steele Boggs
in 1930s Ybor City, Florida. This variant of the Cinderella
story, called “The Turkey Maiden” (from Kristin Congdon’s
anthology Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales, 2001) forms
the narrative structure of the game, which has been further
developed by integrating specifi c tasks that the heroine
Rosa (“Cinderella”) must successfully complete to advance
in the game that are based in lessons to be learned by the
player about Florida history and culture.
4. Chaucer’s Medieval Virtual World Video Game is a virtual
medieval world game based on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
This tale emphasizes the battle between men’s perceived
authority and women’s struggles for power. This game
uses Chaucer’s narrative gap as a springboard for a virtual
medieval quest. In addition to experiencing historical
scenarios, the knight will disguise his identity and experience
the world from various gender and social classes, the Three
Estates of Clergy, Nobility, and Peasantry as well as the
three feminine estates of virgin, widow, and wife.
5. The Medium is a prototype ethics game designed using
the Torque game engine. This three year project was funded
by the University of Central Florida’s Offi ce of Information
Fluency and is in its earliest stages of design. The game pairs
a time travel theme with a switchable fi rst and third person
perspective and also includes an environmentalist subtext.
We will use brief examples culled from these games to support our theoretical assertions and discuss ways in
which usable humanities games can act as a springboard for
bringing together subject matter experts, technologists, and
learners. In their 2006 report on Cyberinfrastructure for
the Humanities and Social Sciences, the American Council of
Learned Societies writes the following in regards to digital
networked technologies for the humanities: “A cyberstructure
for humanities and social science must encourage interactions
between the expert and the amateur, the creative artist and
the scholar, the teacher and the student. It is not just the
collection of data—digital or otherwise—that matters: at least
as important is the activity that goes on around it, contributes
to it, and eventually integrates with it” (14). Our goal is to
foster this type of humanistic, communicative environment
using new technologies for virtual worlds, usability testing, and
game-based learning environments. We hope that the scholarly
community working the fi eld of digital humanities can help
us to explore and refi ne both theoretical models and applied
technologies related to this goal.
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