On the Benefits of Tangible Interfaces for Educational Games

Educational games become more effective when the challenge they offer matches the developing abilities of the player continuously. This promotes the motivation of the player and ensures favorable conditions for learning. To achieve a proper match between the player´s abilities and the challenge offered, it is important to minimize any unintended challenge caused by the user interface.We studied the ease-of-use of a tangible interface for an educational game and of a personal computer based version of the same game. Tangibility of the interface was expected to make the game easier to learn and easier to use than the PC version because it is more direct.The results from our experiment, in which the interactions of children with the physical interface and the screen-based interface were compared, support this. The results suggest that the tangible version of the game is easier to use than the screen-based version and that it causes less unintended load for the children.