Abstract
TERENCE is an adaptive learning system for reasoning about stories with children having deep text comprehension problems. It develops reading interventions in the form of smart games for stimulating the text comprehension of such children. In order to ensure the pedagogical effectiveness and the usability of the smart games, and of the system in general, TERENCE was designed combining the user centred and the evidence based design. In this paper, we illustrate how such methodologies were used in the design of the TERENCE smart games