Designing learning experiences using serious games: innovative village case study

The increasing interest in Learning Experience Design (LXD) has consolidated this field as a new way to transform educational practices. Thanks to its interdisciplinary nature which is mainly rooted in the close relation between human–computer interaction, user experience design and the learning sciences, LXD is a field that demands frameworks to design and develop products that can grow into services, to create interactive learning environments able to provide improvement-driven analytics and to guarantee a significant and satisfactory experience, designed to achieve learning outcomes. Innovative Village serious video game (IVVG) is a service-oriented product within an entrepreneurship and innovation system of platforms developed as an abilities-focused learning environment, and that builds a case study for LXD. This research aims to contribute to the consolidation of the emergent field of Learning Experience Design by providing a case around the Entrepreneurship and Innovation area from EAFIT University in Medellin, a learning system that comprises several service-oriented products; by being one of the products that constitute this system, and as a serious video game, Innovative Village has proven to be a key player in facilitating the learning outcomes and the knowledge integration that stem from the learning environment of the Interactive Design program, where the students’ learning experiences take place. First, related theoretical concepts and historical data will be analyzed to provide background information, then the case study will be addressed focusing on the materials, methods, and results. The study shows that the video game encourages collaborative behavior between players, as perceived by a significant proportion of participants. The research establishes a link between this perception and the role of creaticides in the game. Learning Experience Design (LXD) is about creating products that link the learning process with key competences. The game “Innovative Village” exemplifies this approach and provides insights into design, use, and required competencies. It also presents a framework for designing user-centered learning experiences that incorporate assessments to enhance the learning process. This framework is applicable from the early stages and can be tested in real learning environments.