Design of a Serious Game for Enhancing Money Use in Teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder

People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show often substantial difficulties to understand the concept of money and how to manage it. The majority of them are not independent, even for the most basic financial activities. In this paper, we illustrated the design of a serious game (SG), €UReka, for teens with ASD to train skills useful to recognize and discriminate Euro coins and banknotes and to use them in real-life situations. We followed SGs frameworks for people with ASD and we adopted a participatory design, involving a multidisciplinary team. We included a short version of our game design document to explain how serious contents, game elements, and needs of the players with ASD were balanced in our SG. €UReka consists of two 3D mini-games set in real-life environments, with a simple storyline and user-friendly graphics. The player can individualize their gaming experience, customizing some game options based on their preferences and needs. We developed a first game prototype that will be evaluated through a usability test. In future works, a specific study will be planned to assess possible benefits from training with €UReka.