Development and User Experiences of the Learn Viena Karelian Mobile Web Game

Abstract

Viena Karelian is a dialect of Karelian language, which is categorized as an endangered language and requires an innovative approach to increase motivation and skills of learners. Currently, there are mainly traditional ways to learn Viena Karelian dialect such as occasional gathering and language courses are conducted by a cultural community. Therefore, gamification approach was utilized to develop a mobile web game, so beginner learners could learn in a fun and effective ways, also location-independently. A mobile web game prototype was implemented by utilizing the Laravel PHP framework and Bootstrap frontend framework, which enable the game prototype accessible on mobile web browsers. The main concept of this game was constructed by using a language learning model, which was defined with levels of easy, medium, and hard, also skill sections of listening, reading, and writing. Preliminary user experience test was conducted with 12 game experts and the result shows the game prototype was experienced as Engaging, Easy to use, Useful, Approachable and Consistent.