Game Design Principles Influencing Stroke Survivor Engagement for VR-Based Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Engagement with one's rehabilitation is crucial for stroke survivors. Serious games utilising desktop Virtual Reality could be used in rehabilitation to increase stroke survivors' engagement. This paper discusses the results of a user experience case study that was conducted with six stroke survivors to determine which game design principles are or would be important for engaging them with a desktop VR serious games designed for the upper limb rehabilitation. The results of our study showed the game design principles that warrant further investigation are awareness, feedback, interactivity, flow and challenge; and also important to a great extent are attention, involvement, motivation, effort, clear instructions, usability, interest, psychological absorption, purpose and a first-person view.