Evaluating Software Engineering Simulation Games: the UGALCO framework

The increasing interest in Software Engineering simulation games leads to the problem of how to assess these games in order to measure their real benefits. Until the current days, few attempts were proposed in order to support practitioners evaluating simulation games. This paper introduces UGALCO, a five-dimension framework for simulation games evaluation. Besides a detailed assessment of player's learning, usability, motivation, and user experience, we also included a communicability evaluation from the Human Computer Interaction field. Since our framework is not prescriptive, there are no restrictions regarding its attributes, evaluation perspectives or techniques. Instead, we present how a set of tools and attributes can be used together, bringing more effective results for assessing the game as a whole. We applied this framework for the evaluation of a specific simulation game. Results indicate that this framework can be used to gain better and more understanding of simulation games aspects.