Rilla Khaled is an assistant professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. Her research areas lie at the intersection of culture, persuasion, games, and tools. Read abstract & bio… 

 
Abstract:

Participatory Approaches to Persuasive Technology

In typical game design contexts, it’s commonplace practice for game designers to be given lots of creative freedom. They set the challenges, and we play them. But when we start considering non-game contexts in which entertainment is no longer the sole focal point, whether we’re talking about gamification, serious games, or persuasive technology more generally, designer-centric design practices stop making sense. In these contexts, if products don’t feel relevant to users, even if they are extremely well-designed, their chances of success – where success may be related to behaviour change, attitude change, education, or simply ongoing use and play – are already reduced. In this talk, I will explore how participatory design, a methodology drawn from human-computer interaction, can inform how we design serious games and gamification. I will also examine some of the challenges of bridging the participatory and game design gap.

 
Additional Information & Resources:

Rilla Khaled is an assistant professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, and has a PhD in Computer Science from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her research areas include persuasive design, cross-cultural psychology, serious and persuasive game design, and design methods.

You can find a list of Rilla’s publications at rillakhaled.com
Also, have a look at Rilla talking about serious games in the video below:

 

Rilla Khaled from Innovationlab on Vimeo.