Auditory Uta-Karuta: Development and Evaluation of an Accessible Card Game System Using Audible Cards for the Visually Impaired

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this very interesting paper the authors describe experiments that yield design guidelines for use of auditory signals in card games involving sight-impaired players. The experiments are described clearly, they are justified, and they produced readily-applicable findings.

The authors also do a very nice job in the background characterizing differences between audio use in digital vs. board games, describing when tactile vs. auditory input is valuable, and comparing important game-specific differences such as public vs. private information.

Really the main question this reviewer has is how broadly applicable are the results. That is, Uta-Karuta (like any game) has specific components, setup, and gameplay. The experiments studied these aspects of this game. But other board games use quite different components, have very different setup, and of course vastly different rules of play. Not all games require the same degree of spatial layout that is important here, nor speed in identifying or remembering positions of components. To take an obvious example, chess requires keeping track of changing position but (typically) has effective no time element. This reviewer would like to see discussion about the general application (or lack of application--which is okay, it is fine for a study to have limitations) of findings here to other popular games.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I am sorry, but I fail to see how this simple implementation* can be considered as innovative enough for a journal publication. "Read out" of visual cues is not new and is commonly used amongst the blind computer users. Outcomes (chapter 5) IMHO do not present much added value as it just confirms the existing knowledge (even referenced). General discussion is well, too general, just confirming what is already known.

Further I find very discriminating to compare to the performance of healthy people in such conditions.

More so, article has no convincing results and fails to offer statistically valid experimental data. Reliability is very much in question as the was no rigorous statistical analysis offered in the paper…

*the technological part is even completely missing from the paper. Sounds loaded on an iPod (one Ipod per play card) and the que of playback was controlled how? On pickup? Any prediction? Correlating gameplay, user’s motion, and other activities to some pattern?

To summarize, I think the article is fundamentally flawed in its current state and thus must be rejected. I would encourage the authors to resubmit to a non-technical journal as the study might still be useful to some working with UI for the blind.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In this paper the authors proposed an auditory card game system that presents a card’s contents with sound stimuli to all players, towards playing equally with others, regardless of whether they have a visual impairment or not as one of the solutions to make board games accessible.

Section 1 can be improved. After line 40 you could add paragraphs that introduce what are the methodologies that can allow the inclusion of the blind in the game. So, you talk about the sound. I saw that in section 2 you report some works that have addressed the problem, here you can start introducing yourself.

Section 3 must be improved. You need to describe the Type a and Type b tests more carefully. Explain what are the goals of using these two types of tests.

Section 4 must be improved. You need to clarify the evaluation system adopted. as for the victory there are no problems, instead the mechanism of Subjective Evaluation of the Opponent is not clear for anyone.

Section 5 must be improved. You must describe more carefully the tests you have used and also with what objectives you have performed them. In the previous section you have already obtained results, why do you run other tests?

Section 6 must be improved. Paragraphs are missing where the possible practical applications of the results of this study are reported. What these results can serve the people, it is necessary to insert possible uses of this study that justify their publication. They also lack the possible future goals of this work. Do the authors plan to continue their research on this topic?

30)Move Table 1 in page 3 where is cited

118) A period in missing after the words: or not

115) Move Figure 1 and 2 where are cited. I noticed that you first mention Figure 2 that 1. Then change the order make Figure 2 Figure 1 and vice versa.

154-174) It better explains the need for auralized sound and how this can improve accessibility. The auralized sound contains the changes made by the environment in which it is reproduced, but in this case the sound is reproduced in a room and is not heard in headphones so the connection is not clear.

185-204) It is therefore a memory game in which the player must associate a sound with a position and remember that position. The doubt comes to me that in any case the obvious player has the advantage of identifying the tablet and therefore can grab it faster.

203-204) Make the purpose of these two types clearer.

214-216) Ok, people are blindfolded, so specify it first

236) How did you check that all people hear us well? Did you have an audiometric test?

256-289) Make the purpose of this method clearer.

317-318)” As a result, we found that “Auditory Uta-Karuta” has the potential to be played in the same way by all players, regardless of whether they have a visual impairment or not.” How do you state this? Figure 4 says more, it says that the sighted have a 66% to 75% chance of winning over the blind and blindfolded.

439) Describe in detail the type of sounds you used in the test and differentials for the categories you introduced: Verbal Sounds, Representational Sounds, and abstract sounds.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I'm sorry but not much was changed in the paper apart from minor explanations there and here (more yellow higlights than the factual changes...)

Paper still lacks a proper technical part and does not provide an adequate, technological novelty, considering the nature of this journal.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors addressed all the reviewer's comments with sufficient attention and modified the paper consistently with the suggestions provided. The new version of the paper has improved significantly both in the presentation that is now much more accessible even by a reader not expert in the sector, and in the contents that now appear much more incisive. The detailed description of the figures makes them easier to understand by the author. Finally, the addition of practical applications of the results and the future goals, allows to summarize the meaning of this work.

Finally, I suggest specifying that this is a case study with the aim of verifying the applicability of this methodology to board games. I also suggest specifying that the test involved the three different types of players with the sole purpose of verifying the performance of the players.

Minor revision:

168) Improve the quality of Figure 1

171-177) Add reference to allow readers to learn more about the topic.

247-260) Present these items as bullet list

266-267) Present these items as bullet list

351-353) Present these items as bullet list

467-468) In table 2 there are cells where the text ends with a period and others do not. Use the same notation

483) Do not use abbreviation such as e.g.

484) Do not use abbreviation such as e.g.

495) Do not use abbreviation such as e.g.

520) Do not use footnotes, add the description in the table header

590) The capital letter is missing at the beginning of the sentence

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.