Incorporating intuitive and engaging interactions.

Designers should create simple but engaging interactions for therapeutic activities in mixed reality, as it maintains user interest and avoids frustration.

About this paper

The author introduces ARCADIA, a Mixed-Reality platform codified with therapists to enhance emotional regulation and self-compassion through gamified activities.

Validation studies show promising results in system usability, user engagement, and therapeutic potential, suggesting its future significance in mental health treatment.

Here are some methods used in this study:

Co-Design Mixed Methods

Which part of the paper did the design guideline come from?

“Breathing activity. This activity (depicted in Figure 3c) was co-designed in order to guide users towards a heightened awareness of their own breath, a powerful tool for emotional regulation. It therefore requires the use of a wearable respiration sensor in order to capture the users' breath movements. Importantly, we did not impose any specific breathing patterns; instead, users were encouraged to simply breathe naturally. Mindfulness activities around breathing can draw from different visual (...)” (Section 3.4.1: Therapeutic activities)

Soler-Dominguez, J. L., Navas-Medrano, S., & Pons, P. (2024). ARCADIA: A Gamified Mixed Reality System for Emotional Regulation and Self-Compassion. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1, 1–17.

Inspiration and scope

This paper focuses on the characteristics of mental health patients and therapists in relation to therapeutic gamified activities within mixed reality.

You are designing for children with OCD. Your design context and the paper's context are similar, both aiming to facilitate therapeutic outcomes. The focus on gamified activities for mental health can inform VR therapy methods, emphasizing engagement and therapeutic progression, beneficial in managing OCD in children.

Also, despite differences in technology, both emphasize the importance of interactivity to sustain engagement. Strategies to create engaging and interactive therapeutic activities in the paper can enhance VR therapy for children with OCD by making sessions more captivating.

Leveraging these similarities, consider designing a VR therapy platform with simple, engaging interactions for children with OCD, alternating to prevent monotony and incorporating gamified elements to incentivize progress. This ensures continuous engagement and therapeutic adherence, fostering effective and immersive experiences.

Your input

  • What: Treating patients with OCD using VR therapy methods
  • Who: kids with OCD symptoms
  • Design stage: Research, Ideation

Understanding users

The following user needs and pain points may apply to your design target as well:

Enhanced Engagement

Creating captivating and immersive VR therapy sessions for children with OCD can significantly enhance their engagement. This can be achieved by incorporating gamified elements and interactive activities, which can help maintain their interest and motivation throughout the therapeutic process.

User Customization

Allowing therapists to customize VR therapy activities based on the specific needs of children with OCD can make the interventions more effective. Customization can include adjusting the difficulty level, tailoring the narrative to the child’s interests, and selecting activities that target specific symptoms or triggers of OCD.

Design ideas

Consider the following components for your design:

1

Incorporate a diverse range of mini-games that address various OCD symptoms and gradually increase in difficulty.

2

Utilize a gentle reward system, like badges or progress stars, integrated subtly into the gameplay to encourage perseverance.

3

Design the VR environment to offer multisensory feedback, like visual, auditory, and haptic elements, that align with therapeutic goals.

Methods for you

Consider the following method(s) used in this paper for your design work:

Co-Design Process with Mental Health Professionals

This method can help designers collaborate with mental health professionals to obtain specialized insights and guide their design decisions for VR therapy targeting kids with OCD. Keep in mind to actively engage in brainstorming and use thematic analysis to gather actionable insights.

Thematic Analysis from Co-Design Sessions

Using thematic analysis to review co-design session notes can help identify key themes, ensuring that the VR therapy design addresses the specific needs of kids with OCD. Designers should ensure they focus on recurring themes and insights relevant to their design goals.

[Figure 2] From this figure, you can understand various Extended Reality contexts, which can inspire VR therapy methods for treating kids with OCD.