Poster Feedback!

Today I received the comments from my poster session:

The End to a Great Semester!

Today's presentation went great! It was fun to see everyone's thesis posters and I received some great feedback. Here is a summary of the feedback:

Juror 1:

-seems to "blue skyish": why would everyone want to play a game?

-"community" needs to be better defined

Juror 2:

-Is it a game, or more of a playful activity?

-how will you motivate the users to participate?

-communities vary from place to place making the scope too broad; maybe there should be some general core issues that are adaptable to each location so it can be easily personalized

-for the next steps, try presenting the prototype as an enactment or narrative

Juror 3:

-what is the time scope? Will it be a long-term activity or an ice-breaker

-some commonality must be found; so far the demographics are extremely broad and could use more focus

Final Poster Design

Poster draft 2 Advisor Critique

This was my final practice presentation. Many of my peers' comments on the visual presentation were echoed by my thesis advisors, but overall everyone seemed extremely happy with the verbal presentation! I was extremely happy with the result of my presentation since I don't think it will be too difficult to modify the visuals.

Poster Draft 2 Critique

After presenting with my poster in front of other design students in my program, I received a lot of great feedback; however, at this point, the majority of the feedback was only about visual presentation, not content. People commented that the white space in the circles were extremely awkward and distracting; the asterisk in the center of the diagram was not noticeable enough; the abstract was too small and unnoticeable; the timeline was too heavy and distracting; the font was too faint. Overall it went pretty well, I was pleased with my work and it seemed everyone understood the content clearly and were satisfied with my argument.

Poster draft 2

For this draft of my poster, I made sure to focus more on the main element of the overlapping circles, including more content within them. I wanted to address more serious issues to convince the viewer that this project is a legitimate issue.

Poster Draft 1

After presenting this to my thesis advisors, it was clear a lot of questions were left unanswered: Why is this a problem at all? How is this project significant? What exactly were the findings from the research? What do the word clouds mean, how do those words connect to each other? My advisors and thesis peers gave me much to think about for my second poster draft!

Poster Brainstorming

I decided I would like to communicate my thesis by separating it into three areas of interest: Context (Boundaries of the final project: who, where, when, why, etc.), Community Theory (Why people need community, interview findings, etc.), Games (Mechanics, Game design techniques, etc.)

Overall Key Findings from Fall Semester

The Problem in a Nutshell:
Downfall in Community Participation, "Neighborliness", and lack of emotional attachment to one's neighbors and neighborhood


Effects of the Problem:
-Increased Crime rates
-Decreased Participation in Politics and Community Volunteering
-Lack of Community Organizations, Weakened Relationships


The Root of the Problem:
-The invention of the car (people's abilities to travel farther faster)
-Women in the workforce (increased pressure to spend more time working)
-Advancements in entertainment technology (television, the internet, and other isolating activities)




Resident Interview Findings:
-4 Main Types of Neighbors: Community Activists, Social Butterflies, Polite Reserved Neighbors, Shy/Detached Neighbors
-People are afraid of their neighbors, yet they are looking for ways to meet people and to connect with one another
-Feeling attached to one's physical environment leads to emotional attachment to one's neighbors


How Games can Make a Difference:
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Revised Feedback Session

I've gone through each scenario and prepared it for the research session. Next steps: Create the prototypes, recruit participants, and make appointments!

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Scavenger Hunt Race

Main Feedback

• Would people want to collaborate with their neighborhood if they shared a common enemy (an other neighborhood)?

Prototype

• List
• Flyer
• visualization of data

Process

• Show Flyer, Would you want to participate? Why?
• Show List, What if it were things you find in your everyday routine?
• Show Visualization, Would this encourage you to participate more?

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Guessing Game, Who’s the Neighbor?

Main Feedback

• If people were paired up by a system, would they be likely to start a conversation or even a friendship?

Prototype

• Letter
• Catalog

Process

• Explain game
• Show Catalog, Would you want your profile to be included in this?
• Show Letter, Would you want to learn more? Would you keep up a conversation? Would you feel comfortable becoming friends? What would you write about yourself to someone?

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Fill in the Blank Puzzle

Main Feedback

• Do people respond better and participate more within their community if events, neighbors, and businesses were personalized and well visualized?

Prototype

• Visualization Before (empty)
• Quiz of all of the businesses and people you would like to get to know
• Visualization After

Process

• Show Visualization after, explain tool
• Show quiz, Would you want to learn about new businesses that you don’t use?
• Show visualization before, What would you put on your map? Would this be useful for businesses? People? Events? When would this be useful for you?

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Ice Breaker

Main Feedback

• Would people talk to each other if they are given the proper cues?

Prototype

• Screen Notification
• Photo and Quest screen (have 5 quests for participant to choose from)

Process

• Show Phone and explain it’s a mobile app called ice breaker that helps you meet neighbors who are near by
• Show notification, If you were at a café and received this notification, would you want to learn more, or would you ignore it?
• Show profile and quest, Would you follow through this quest? If not, what kind of quest would you follow? Would this be fun? Would you feel comfortable meeting someone this way?

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Scoring Mechanism and Rewards

Main Feedback

• Do people need a realistic motivation (i.e. money) to encourage them to play games?

Prototype

• Points or Tokens
• Gift Certificate, split in half

Process

• Explain the game has already been played
• Show Tokens, Would you want to exchange these for a gift certificate?
• Show gift certificate, Would you want to use this even if you were required to share it? Would you go out of your way to not share it (selling it, paying the other neighbor off, etc.)

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Collaborative Construction Game

Main Feedback

• Would people bond by building something together? Do people want to help out their community if the opportunity is presented to them in a fun way?

Prototype

• Image of color by numbers mural

Process

• Show image and explain task
• Ask if they would like to participate, why?
• Ask what other construction is needed in their neighborhood
• Ask if this should be turned into a game, with points or some kind of reward

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Community Portal

Main Feedback

• Would people want a virtual space where they can communicate and self-organize as a community? What do people want to make public to their neighbors?

Prototype

• Conceptual Model 
• Unfinished profile
• List of Features (each feature on a different post-it

Process

• Show conceptual model, explain concept
• Show unfinished website and list of features, Which features would you like to see in this community portal?, Why?
• Show unfinished profile, What would you feel comfortable putting on your profile and making public to your neighbors?
• Would you use this if it were a new website? If it were a platform on Facebook?

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Notification System for Short, Low Commitment Games

Main Feedback

• Would people be more motivated to play games if they received weekly triggers or reminders to do so?

Prototype

• Calendar
• Phone Notification
• List of games (Turn everyday into games)

Process

• Show calendar, explain concept
• Show examples of games, ask if they would likely participate
• Show phone notification, Would they respond? Ignore? Would they pass it off as spam? How often should they be notified? (what’s not too much or too little?)

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Ludic Distraction for Ambient Familiarity

Main Feedback

• Would people be likely to introduce one another if there were an interesting conversation piece? Would people feel safer or more attached to their community if they recognized their neighbors?

Prototype

• Table top 
• Screens: bubbles, Tic-tac-toe, choose game screen
• Map with placement of table tops

Process

• Show map, explain concept
• Show bubble screen, Would you want to interact with this?
• Show video capture of neighbor, Would you continue playing if you could video chat during? Would you feel safer in your neighborhood if you recognized most of the people who live around? Would you want to start a conversation with that person?
• How would this work in different contexts?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Took a little break from Thesis to enjoy some turkey with my family :)

Thesis Meeting

Between yesterday's group meeting and today's individual meeting with Nick and Gill, I feel like I'm finally ready to conduct these sessions and begin receiving feedback from people. The most helpful thing I discovered between the two meetings was the importance of writing down what the overall questions or feedback interest is that I'm looking for within each scenario. We were able to also establish a better language for each scenario:

1. Community vs. Community   >   Scavenger Hunt Race
2. One-to-One Matching   >   Guessing game, "Who's the Neighbor?"
3. Personalized Communities   >   Fill in the Blank Puzzle
4. Social Catalysts   >   Mini-Quest
5. Economy   >   Scoring Mechanism and Rewards
6. Building Things Together   >   Collaborative Construction Game
7. Browse Neighbors   >   Community Portal
8. Mini Games   >   Notification System for Low Commitment Games
9. Installations for Play   >   Amusing Distraction for Ambient Familiarity

We also decided on an overall structure for presenting the ideas:

1. Notification System (8)
2. Fill in the Blank Puzzle (3)
3. Community Portal (7)
4. Collaborative Construction Game (6)
5. Scavenger Hunt Race (1)
6. Guessing Game (2)
7. Mini-Quest (4)
8. Scoring Mechanism and Rewards (5)
9. Amusing Distraction for Ambient Familiarity (9)

Prototypes

I created a few prototypes to get feedback on from Nick and Gill. Hopefully I'm on the right track and can get some feedback soon.


My goal is to interview 2 pairs (4 people) during Thanksgiving. 

Feedback from Nick and Gill

Today I received some feedback from Nick and Gill. They were overall happy with the concepts, but felt I should present it in a less static way. My scenarios are all written in third person and in a way that would be difficult for a participant to imagine his or herself partaking in the activity described. They recommended I create physical prototypes for the participant to use so he or she can better interact or imagine the game. Also, prototypes would create more open ended questions that allow the participant to be open to coming up with his or her own take on new ideas for these games.

Scenario Workbook

This is a scenario booklet I created for a speed-dating session. I'll present it to Nick and Gill later this week to see what they think and how I can make it as effective as possible. Not all of the sketches are completed, but the scenarios are still being edited.

IRB Approval!

What a great day! I just got approval from IRB :) Finally!

Ideation Session

I came up with over 50 small concepts (features, or game elements) that I thought satisfied at least a few of the elements in my concept/context/mechanics chart. 


From this I was able to narrow down my ideas to nine different features that I would like to get feedback on: 

1. Community vs. Community
2. One-to-One Matching
3. Personalized Communities 
4. Social Catalysts
5. Economy
6. Building Things Together
7. Browse Neighbors
8. Mini Games
9. Installations for Play

From these I will create scenarios to conduct speed-dating research sessions for feedback.

Game Research

My reading list on Game Mechanics:

The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell

Play Theory, Pat Kane

Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman

Games without Frontiers, Aki Järvinen

Thesis Meeting

When I had to present my progress to Nick and Gill, I was able to summarize my current findings into three categories that I have been researching: Game Mechanics, Community Theory, and Context. These three elements are currently defined with specific characteristics; now I have to bring them all together to produce a few ideas for features or game elements of my potential game concept.

Beginning the Ideation Phase!

Now that my discovery and synthesis phases are complete, I plan to begin ideating asap! However, I decided to go through Shell's game mechanics first and pin-point a few that I felt are particularly necessary for my goals. Here is a map of the highlighted game design methods:

Narrowing the Context

It's almost time to enter the ideation phase of my thesis! To prepare for this, I want to consolidate all of my current models into one, final context. To do this, I went through all of my maps and pin-pointed an area of interest, followed by creating a map that shows the final context.