The paper “Looking through the Lens: Contextualizing and Operationalizing Design Recommendations for Rehabilitation Games for Young People” co-authored by Maria Aufheimer, Kathrin Gerling, T. C. Nicholas Graham, André Rodrigues (LASIGE integrated member), and Zeynep Yildiz, was published at PACMHCI GAMES (Q1) and received an Honorable Mention. The work was presented at ACM CHIPlay, on October 13-16, 2025.

The research addresses the challenge of making high-level design advice for therapeutic games actionable. The authors first refined existing design lessons through semi-structured interviews with young people (aged 7–16) and their parents. The work then operationalized these lessons by mapping them onto established game design patterns, providing concrete, practical guidance for development. This new approach for linking theory to practice was critically tested by applying it to analyze two existing physical therapy games, Liberi and Wii Fit, demonstrating that game design patterns effectively translate abstract design implications into practical tools for both the analysis and creation of engaging rehabilitation games.