Design and Development of a Sentence Construction Game for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) Users: A Qualitative Usability Study

Abstract

Concerns about the writing proficiency of deaf students in the English language are well known and persistent. Many of them prefer to write concise sentences with fewer adjectives and adverbs and exhibit a variety of syntax usage errors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of a learning intervention created to help DHH students who struggle with sentence formation. The users played with the digital prototype and the perception of the usability of the intervention was analysed and represented using a thematic analysis. Primary insights on the usability and design of this game-based early intervention revealed that the content was well received but more gamification components must be added for the intervention to be both enjoyable and pedagogically valuable. Incorporating more gamification components, conjugating verbs, and studying the effectiveness of the intervention in addressing the difficulty of DHH students in framing sentences will be the focus of the future extension of the study.