Learning by gaming: Improvement of User Experience of a Simulation Game for Teaching the Digital Transformation and its Administration Cockpit

Abstract

Simulation business games have recently become a suitable tool that gives students an understanding of how companies and their markets function, as well as the interaction of the components necessary to build a business. Interpreting business processes and business models is a key competency for future graduates in information systems, which is hard to teach without dealing with real-world problems. Simulation games are one of the possible approaches for teaching business processes to information systems students. This paper presents a description of the development of two web modules: for the administration of simulation games and the interface of the business game itself. After collecting data, requirements for the prototypes of Admin-Cockpit, and the simulation game itself, which were conducted in focus groups, the implementation phase began. The main requirements for the applications were successfully implemented in the prototypes and afterward were evaluated. In the output, we have a working prototype of the business game module and the Admin-Cockpit module for configuration. In summary, our contribution is a planned and implemented redesign of the game, positively affecting students’ engagement and interest. Additionally, was developed an improved and expanded version of Admin-Cockpit for game management, giving configuration options and statistics collection. Thus, we can conclude that this work has a positive contribution to the development of simulation game design and development, which was also confirmed by the results of the surveys.