Designing a Serious Game for Visually Impaired Children: Interactive play to enhance Cognitive and Sensory Skills through Shape, Color Recognition.

Traditional therapy techniques cause disengagement and decreased productivity in visually impaired children because they are monotonous and unappealing. This thesis presents the development of an interactive educational tool addressed for enhancing cognitive and sensory learning for children with visual impairments. Application of multisensory feedback, notably through audio signals, the tool provides a simple enjoyable learning environment. Built using Processing, an open-source programming based on Java with an integrated environment, the tool utilizes its graphical and sound libraries to provides numerous functions to develop video games, animations and in overall allows to easily manage many multimedia and graphic aspects that actively participate children in multi-sensory learning experiences. The interactive game is structured to include harder levels, allowing learners to start with basic tasks and eventually continue to more complicated exercises, building confidence and skill enhancement. Using an iterative design process, the tool gives specific guidance on correct and incorrect responses, strengthening memory retention and cognitive development. Furthermore, it records user performance, enabling caregivers and educators to monitor growth and modify the learning path as needed. This project covers the pedagogical ideas of multi-sensory education, illustrating how the combination of auditory, tactile, and visual stimuli might improve learning results for children with impairments. The technical obstacles of creating an adaptive system that can be tailored for varied learning needs are addressed along the possibilities for expanding the framework to accommodate other educational objectives. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usability of a case game using the Heuristic Evaluation method. This evaluation approach, which involves experts reviewing the game based on established usability principles, successfully generated a list of practical suggestions for further development. By leveraging heuristic evaluation, the study provides insights for improving the game’s design while adhering to ethical constraints, demonstrating that this method is a valuable alternative for evaluating similar games without directly involving the intended audience. The need of developing educational resources that cater to diverse learning abilities is demonstrated by examining the accessibility and challenges faced by visually impaired children. This ensures that all children have the opportunity to thrive in their educational pursuits.