Instructional strategies for the visual aesthetics of user interface design: Incorporating game-based learning into a modular multi-structural approach

Abstract

Adding visual aesthetics to the standard Computer Science (CS) Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) curriculum, while necessary, is not easy. The core skills are best understood by practitioners with a background in Art and Design, and its subjective nature often makes aesthetics difficult for students to learn. An emerging learning paradigm, commonly known as game‐based learning (GBL), has the potential to better support student learning and sustain their motivation within limited instructional time. This thesis aims to study the effectiveness of a modular GBL approach in helping CS students learn about visual aesthetics. In particular, it set out to evaluate students’ usage of a bespoke GBL prototype designed for this specific educational context. DELMo, a new visual aesthetics learning module, was firstly designed based on the SOLO taxonomy. It allowed for a systematic and modular approach to structuring the learning content, and became a significant component in the instructional strategy. Drawing on the Design-based Research (DBR) in Education framework, the GBL prototype has been informed by engaging with education literature and iteratively tested and refined in a natural educational setting (HCI course delivery). The prototype consists of a web-based learning environment named Design Eye that incorporates two new serious mini-games and a colouring tool named DEColour. In the summative evaluation, students reported enjoying the GBL activities in Design Eye and felt that they learned from them. This is consistent with the majority of the literature supporting the use of games in a learning delivery method. However, the results also showed a significant decrease in their perception of the importance of the topic. This may suggest that mini-games as an instructional tool carries the risk of making the subject seem trivial for some students. Instructors considering the use of mini-games should therefore consider the trade-off between the level of enjoyment provided by mini-games to engage students with a topic, and the potential long term impact of reducing the perceived importance of that topic. At a micro level, the research contributes to HCI education, namely in the construction (module design) and delivery (via GBL) of the visual aesthetics course material. At a macro level, experience with design, development, implementation and evaluation of this project provides valuable insights for other research efforts in the game-based approach to learning design-related subjects. The iterative-incremental DBR model also contributes to the GBL research domain, particularly in the design, implementation and evaluation of bespoke games in formal educational context.