Abstract

The main purpose of the study is to evaluate the heuristic inspection of children’s authoring tools to develop games. The researcher has selected 15 authoring tools for making games specifically for educational purposes. Nine students from Diploma of Game Design and Development course and four lecturers from the computing department involved in this evaluation. A set of usability heuristic checklist used as a guideline for the students and lecturers to observe and test the authoring tools selected. The study found that, there are just a few authoring tools that fulfil most of the heuristic requirement and suitable to apply to children. In this evaluation, only six out of fifteen authoring tools have passed above than five elements in the heuristic inspection checklist. The researcher identified that to develop a usable authoring tool developer has to emphasis children acceptance and interaction of the authoring tool. Furthermore, the authoring tool can be a tool to enhance their mental development especially in creativity and skill.

Highlights

  • Digital games have been the current trend that has gained a place among our society today

  • Teachers and educators agreed the positive impact of digital games as one of teaching aids in teaching and learning process until the realization of Game-Based Learning (GBL) term in education (Connolly, Stansfield & Boyle, 2009)

  • The objective of this study is to examine the heuristic usability of authoring tools for making digital games for children that are available for free online

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Summary

Introduction

Digital games have been the current trend that has gained a place among our society today. With the involvement with GBL, it is necessary to provide the exposure and opportunity to the children to show their talents and abilities in making proposed digital games. The expansions of technology nowadays cause many software companies competing against each other to produce tools that able to gain wider share in the market. The authoring tool is one of software application that gaining momentum among consumers to facilitate their work. There are issues of concern relating to the usability of authoring tool in the development of digital games, to children. The objective of this study is to examine the heuristic usability of authoring tools for making digital games for children that are available for free online

Objectives
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