A Heuristic Evaluation of an Educational Game for
Children with Dyslexia
Nihal OUHERROU
Computer Science dept, Chouaib Doukkali University
El Jadida, Morocco
ouherrou.n@ucd.ac.ma
Oussama ELHAMMOUMI
Computer Science dept, Chouaib Doukkali University
El Jadida, Morocco
elhammoumi.o@ucd.ac.ma
Abstract—Over the last decade, researchers have shown an
increased interest in the use of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) in special education.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that affects around
6% to 17% of the school age population. Children with
dyslexia have difficulty in learning to read despite
conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and
sociocultural opportunity. The purpose of this paper, is to
present the design and evaluation of an educational game
developed for children with learning disabilities to assess
their skills in Arabic language. In this study, eleven
children with dyslexia aged between 8–12 years old and
specialists in the field of special education are involved in
the evaluation of the game. The outcomes show that
children find the game exciting and full of fun, also, the
feedback from the specialists in this field indicates that the
game is a supportive tool to help children with dyslexia to
overcome their difficulties in reading and it can promote the
learning process and help them to learn effectively.
Keywords— Learning Disabilities (LD), Dyslexia, learning
style, Information and Communication Technology (ICT),
evaluation, educational game.
I. INTRODUCTION
Many definitions of dyslexia have emerged over the years,
one of the most popular definition was proposed by the
International Dyslexia Association[1]. It has been defined as a
specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is
characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word
recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities
Dyslexia affects around 6% to 17% of the school age
population [2]. There are some warning signs of dyslexics such
as reversal of letters, omission of words, confusion of letters,
difficulty with comprehension of sounds and letters, difficulty
separating sounds in words, difficulty using sounds to make
words and difficulty in recovering from memory sounds and
letters [3].
Recently, studies are focusing on the potential benefits of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use in
978-1-5386-4385-3/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Fatimaezzahra BENMARRAKCHI
Computer Science dept, Chouaib Doukkali University
El Jadida, Morocco
benmarrakchi.f@ucd.ac.ma
Jamal EL KAFI
Computer Science dept, Chouaib Doukkali University
El Jadida, Morocco
jelkafi@gmail.com
special education to improve and develop interactive
experiences that can assist and help children with Learning
Disabilities (LD). Most of these research studies [4] [5] assume
that ICT has an important role in improving learning process of
children with LD. It may facilitate learning and make it easier.
Although there are a variety of research within the areas of
information technology and LD [6] [7], there still seems to be a
research gap. For instance, the evaluation of several e-learning
tools for the target children has not been demonstrated. Besides,
there are no unified strategies to design e-learning tools for
children with LD. Research is therefore, needed in this area.
In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of an
educational game developed for children with learning
disabilities to help them to learn to read Arabic.
II. RELATED WORK
A. Dyslexia
Children with dyslexia have difficulties to acquire reading
skills despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and
sociocultural opportunity [8]. M. Annett et al. [9] differ between
two types of dyslexia; phonological dyslexia and surface
dyslexia. Phonological dyslexia is the most common type, it is
characterized by difficulties to translate graphemes to
phonemes, reading new words and pseudo-words. Individuals
with phonological dyslexia have a good visual memory for real
words with irregular spellings. While, surface dyslexia is
characterized by poor knowledge of irregular words; the reading
of individuals with surface dyslexia is slow and they don’t
always understand the meaning of the word. Also, it is possible
that individuals have mixed dyslexia, which is the combination
of phonological and surface dyslexia.
B. E-learning tools for children with Learning disabilities
Nowadays, we have a great number of Assistive e-learning
tools to support basic skills in writing, reading and math. Table1
shows the most representative studies about the use of e-learning
tools for children with LD.
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 TABLE I. OVERVIEW OF E-LEARNING TOOLS FOR CHILDREN WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

Tools Target learner Advantages Limits Evaluation

Children’s Storybook Children with This tool improves children's reading and The tool requires The evaluation is based on
Reading System reading difficulties. provides an interactive learning improvements in guidelines comments and feedbacks
(StoBook) using RFID environment that motivates and allows them and design. there is a low received from teachers and
Technology to learn while having fun. Children can contrast between the color of children.
[10] move their hands, eyes and other organs to the text and the background.
place the syllable-card and pictures during
their interaction.
Calculating Aid Tools: Children with The application improves children with The sample is limited in 5 The evaluation based only on
KidKanit dyscalculia (Math dyscalculia basic skills such as addition, children with dyscalculia and children's comments.
[11] difficulties). subtraction, multiplication, and division. the game performance has not
Plus, the application use animation and been demonstrated.
colorful graphics which increase and
motivate them to learn.
Personalized e-learning Children with The system provides an interactive The system focuses only on The evaluation based on
system [12] dyslexia. environment that tends to increase the alphabets structure. comments from teachers in
awareness of alphabets structure for The absence of iterative tests the field of special education.
dyslexic children. and experimentation.
AGENT-DYSL : an Children with The system combines speech recognition, The system focuses only on The evaluation involves
adaptive reading dyslexia. affective state recognition via image one of dyslexic’s difficulties teachers and student using
assistance [13] recognition, and error type which is reading. questionnaires.
to promote the development of reading
skills.

III. THE PROPOSED APPLICATION FOR CHILDREN WITH x Activity2: ‘I build and I complete’
DYSLEXIA The activity gives a set of pieces in a certain way. The
A. The educational game overview child is asked to use pieces to construct the picture. Then,
choose the correct written word. This activity tends to
The educational game is developed by Benmarrakchi et al. enhance children writing skills.
[14], with a primary evaluation. The new version of this game
is called ‘FunLexia’, it is characterized by important
improvements in the term of design, interaction, flexibility and
error prevention. The application is constructed around three
activities composed of different levels. These activities are due
to previous studies conducted by Benmarrakchi et al. [4][5]
[6][7], that explore the beneficial use of ICT in special
education.
‘FunLexia’ is a game developed to help children with dyslexia
to learn to read Arabic. An important characteristic of the game
is that it is based on children learning style. In addition, the
graphical user interface is developed especially for the target
learners. The name ‘FunLexia’ composed of two parts ‘Fun’ and
‘Lexia’, which means that the purpose of the educational game
is to make learning enjoyable and fun. ‘Lexia’, refers to ‘word’ Figure 2.Screenshot of activity 1
in Greek but in the game is also the name of the character that
accompanies the learner in different stage in the game, and it is
designed as a monkey.
‘FunLexia’ was constructed around the theme of Treasure
Island, the child is asked to click on the map marker icon in each
island to start the activity. When the child finishes the activity,
the boat moves to the next island until the end of the game. In
total, the game contains pretest, posttest and three major
activities.
x Activity1 ‘I listen and I build’
The child is asked to listen to the word and drag and drop
letters in the right place to construct the word. The main goal of
this activity is to improve children reading skills. Figure
Figure2.1.Screenshot
Screenshot of activity
activity 2 part 1
2 part1

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Figure 3. Screenshot of activity 2 part 2
x Activity3: ‘I listen and I complete’
In this activity, the child is asked to complete the sentence’s
missing letters from a list. The principal goal of this activity is
to develop children short term memory and concentration.
B. The Heuristic evaluation of the game
The evaluation of ‘FunLexia’, is completed by a heuristic
evaluation developed by J. Nielsen [15], he proposed 10 most
general principles for interaction design. This evaluation is
widely used in many studies. For example, the work presented
in [16], to evaluate video games or the work of [17] about the
evaluation of an e-learning application. In this study, we present
the outcomes of a heuristic evaluation for ‘FunLexia’ based on
Nielsen Usability Heuristics (NUH) and conducted by
specialists in the field of special education. Table 2 below
represents the heuristic evaluation of the educational game.

TABLE II. HEURISTIC EAVALAUTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL GAME

Nielsen Usability Heuristics (NUH) Proposed Heuristic evaluation for ‘FunLexia’ Yes No
Visibility of system status Visibility of The educational game keeps users informed about what is Ꭓ
The system should always keep users informed about system status going on.
what is going on, through appropriate feedback within At the end of each activity, the feedback indicates the next
reasonable time. action. Ꭓ
The educational game informs target users their progress
during performing task. Ꭓ
Response times are appropriate to the task. Ꭓ
Match between system and the real world Match between The educational game speaks the user’s language. Ꭓ
The system should speak the users' language, with words, system and the The educational game uses familiar icons. Ꭓ
phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than real world
system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, Follows real-word conventions. Ꭓ
making information appear in a natural and logical order. Tasks appear in a logical order. Ꭓ
User control and freedom User control and The educational game support undo and redo. Ꭓ
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will freedom
need a clearly marked ‘emergency exit’ to leave the The educational game permit target users to control their Ꭓ
unwanted state without having to go through an extended actions.
dialogue. Support undo and redo. User can go back to previous task. Ꭓ

Consistency and standards Consistency and The place of component on each interface expresses the Ꭓ
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, standards same thing.
situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow
platform conventions.
Error prevention Error prevention The educational game is carefully designed to prevent a Ꭓ
Even better than good error messages are a careful design problem from occurring in the first place.
which prevents a problem from occurring in the first
place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check
for them and present users with a confirmation option
before they commit to the action.
Recognition rather than recall Recognition Minimize the users memory load. Ꭓ
Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, rather than
actions, and options visible. The user should not have to recall Objects, actions, and options are visible. Ꭓ
remember information from one part of the dialogue to
another. Instructions for use of the system should be Appropriate color contrast between images, elements, and Ꭓ
visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. text.

Flexibility and efficiency of use Flexibility and The educational game program speeds up the interaction for Ꭓ
Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often efficiency of use the expert user, but also to respond to the needs of the
speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the inexperienced child.
system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced
users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.

388
 Aesthetic and minimalist design Aesthetic and The educational game interfaces don’t contain information Ꭓ
Dialogues should not contain information which is minimalist which is irrelevant or rarely needed.
irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of design
information in a dialogue competes with the relevant
units of information and diminishes their relative
visibility.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from Help users Error message is used in sound format to indicate error. Ꭓ
errors recognize,
The error message proposes the cause of the wrong answer. Ꭓ
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no diagnose, and
codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively recover from
The error message indicates the solution. Ꭓ
suggest a solution. errors
Help and documentation Help and The educational game provides help to users. Ꭓ
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation
documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and The educational game makes the information easy to search, Ꭓ
documentation. Any such information should be easy to focused on the user's task.
search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be
carried out, and not be too large.

C. Feedback and comments from children and specailist

Eleven children with dyslexia aged between 8–12 years old The results from the heuristic evaluation and survey show
are involved in the evaluation of the game. They were selected that ‘FunLexia’ can improve children skills and offers them an
from the Speech-Language Pathology Service-Health, El Jadida enjoyable environment to learn. The game keeps children
Morocco. The children were asked to play with ‘FunLexia’. informed about their progress during performing a task. Also, it
Then, they were asked to answer to a questionnaire consisting of uses visible objects and coherent color to minimize children load
5 questions as presented in table 3 below. The questionnaire was memory. Puzzle (activity 2), animation and the character ‘Lexia’
tended to obtain feedback from those target children and also are one of the most preferred elements for children in the game.
from speech therapists who have expertise in this field. The However, results show also that the game requires
results are presented in table 3. improvement in term of user control and freedom of navigation
such as, the game should make the child able to move freely,
TABLE III. THE RESULTS OF THE EVALUTION OF THE GAME
especially if she/he makes a mistake and wants to go back to
Questions Responses Responses according to previous task. Also, the feedback must provide help in the case
according to speech therapists of wrong answer. Among the proposed recommendations to
children with improve the educational game are to add more activities such as
dyslexia
What do you think 100% find the It helps children to learn to read
phonetic confusion, spatial and temporal organization and more
about the game? game enjoyable in Arabic. It helps also their multimedia contents such as pictures, sounds, videos and
and fun. visual memory by the use of colorful graphics.
colors, pictures, and animation
that increase the retention of Furthermore, the speech therapists suggested working on an
information. intelligent technique to keep children motivated during
What are the 70% the use of The variety of activities performing the game. Because several studies have shown that
things that you multimedia proposed by the game to children with LD suffer from emotional problem because of their
liked the most in contents such as support children with dyslexia difficulties, as stated by [18] children with LD may
the game? pictures, in Arabic such as recognizing
animation, letters, structure of words, experience increased anxiety and a lower self-concept.
sounds, text, and identifying letters and words to
colorful graphics. enhance short-term memory.
Also, they suggested adding new activities about math, with
30% the the aim to improve children mathematical skills such as
character Lexia. addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Because,
What activities did 100% Activity 2 Even if activity 3 is hard for dyslexia can be isolated or associated with other learning
you like more? dyslexic children, it’s very disabilities (LD) such as, arithmetic disorder (dyscalculia).
important.
Do you find the 80 % find the Activity 3. Therefore, a further study with more focus on the area
game difficult to activity 3 of learning mathematics and emotional states of children with
play, if yes, which difficult LD is needed.
activity? compared with
the activity 1 and IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
the activity 2.
What do you want 70% more More activities regarding This paper, presents a heuristic evaluation of an educational
to see added to the pictures and phonetic confusion and other game for children with dyslexia, the results show that the
game? songs. activities with missing letters in educational game is a supportive tool. The feedback obtained
20% want a different position to construct from the speech therapists also indicates that the game can
version of words. Also, it is important to
‘FunLexia’ in keep children motivated during
promote the learning process and help to learn effectively.
French. the game. For future work, we plan to improve the game functionalities
New tasks for math.
in terms of learning and multimedia contents and the usability

389
heuristics rules. The design of new activities for math and an
animated pedagogical agent with emotional capacities will be
carry out to support and motivate children with LD during
learning process.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was financially supported by an Excellence Grant
accorded to Nihal Ouherrou (3UCD2018), Fatimaezzahra
Benmarrakchi (2UCD2015) and Oussama Elhammoumi
(11UAE2017) by the National Center of Scientific and
Technical Research (CNRST)-Minister of National Education,
Higher Education, Staff Training and Scientific Research,
Morocco.
The authors would like to acknowledge the president and
staff at Speech-Language Pathology Service-Health center, El
Jadida Morocco and also children who have participated in this
study. The authors would like also to thank the speech therapist
Ilham Elhousni for her valuable suggestions and
recommendations.
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