Increasing Super Pop VR™ Users' Intrinsic Motivation by Improving the Game's Aesthetics

Abstract

During physical therapy intervention protocols, it's important to consider the individual's intrinsic motivation to perform in-home recommended exercises. Physical therapy exercises can become tedious thus limiting the individual's progress. Not only have researchers developed serious gaming systems to increase user motivation, but they have also worked on the design aesthetics since results have shown positive effects on the users' performance for attractive models. As such, we improved the aesthetics of a previously developed serious game called Super Pop VR™. Namely, we improved the game graphics, added new game features, and allowed for more game options to provide users the opportunity to tailor their own experience. The conducted user studies show that participants rank the version of the game with the improved aesthetics higher in terms of the amount of interest/enjoyment it generates, thus allowing for an increase in intrinsic motivation when interacting with the system.