Evaluation of a Serious Game as an innovative technology to communicate and engage stakeholders for Digitally Enhanced Advance Service (DEAS) offer

This project would build on the research carried out in the enhancement of customers understanding and education in the value of Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services (DEAS) through Serious Games/Gamification project. This was a nine months’ exploratory pilot project. The primary challenge was to determine if serious games could be employed to enhance communication, education and engagement of customers regarding DEAS offers. Designing, implementing and developing a game for a DEAS offer could potentially enhance both the customers and business understanding into the value in DEAS. To this end, this research engaged and collaborated with a key stakeholder (The Howden Group). A game was designed for the Howden group to improve the uptake of the remote monitoring service offered as part of their advance service offer. The simplification and simulation of the offer’s benefits could be experienced through the game-play, impacting clients and customers decision-making process to utilise Howdens’ services. This would result in increased efficiency of their products, reduced downtime and improved clients process and production.
The research carried out in the project broadened the scope of the creative content methodologies for video games; this was done by increasing the impact in sectors such as manufacturing (Howden Group). The creative content methodology adopted in this project was repurposed and developed in order to have a focus on education and engagement rather than entertainment. One of the main outputs of the previous research was a fully functional/ playable game which was developed and tested by the Howden group and others. Howden saw the value in the proposed research and was involved in up-taking and using this research.
Due to budget constraints and limitations imposed by the world wide pandemic at the time limited interaction with the game and the potential impact of the initial research. The proposed research project intends to broaden the impact of the initial research project by utilising the game as a case study and involving other businesses/manufacturers/ engineers in a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) Study. A TAM study allows gauging the acceptance of a new technology based on user’s feedback. TAM’s are used to measure customers/users attitudes towards a new technology by measuring the ‘Perceived Usefulness’ and ‘Perceived Ease of Use’. This study will enable us to see the impact of the game outside of the Howden group and help others see the potential use of innovative technologies to communicate complex servitisation offers.
The project intends to expand and simplify accessibility to the game by providing it on multiple platforms (IOS, Web, Android and Windows). This would enable the game to be easily accessible, simplify the user trials for the TAM Study and aid with the current restrictions imposed by the ongoing pandemic.