We met with Amanda Thompson and Ariella Lehrer at Explore Interactive to discuss what they had been working on and where they were having difficulties. While they were doing well receiving educational grants, they wanted some help with their gaming interface. Our team was asked to help with the onboarding, engagement, and error handling, all while telling a compelling story for their augmented reality educational game. The game was designed to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculum) to 3rd through 6th graders. Our team was a little intimidated with the project, however, we were excited to have such a challenge handed to us.
To get us started, we began with domain research to expand our knowledge on augmented reality, STEM curriculum, games in education, and technology in education. I came away understanding the reason for STEM education in the U.S. – U.S. students were testing poorly compared to other industrialized nations. This has been a concern for how the U.S. would stay competitive in the global economy. During the research, I also ran across a new term, xR, which is the combination of virtual reality and augmented reality. It seems to me this term will become more common as additional technologies are brought into the fold in the future.
We also conducted a competitive analysis evaluating the intersection of educational games, augmented reality games, and entertainment games. We found that Mine Craft was one of the first entertainment games that was leveraging their prior success into augmented reality technology. We came across Osmo, which does a combination of education with augmented reality for kids at home. It looked like Explore Interactive was moving into a fairly untapped market.
Next, we began our Subject Matter Expert (SME) and user interviews. What we found from the SME interviews was the user needed to get into the gaming environment quickly to keep their attention. They suggested the player should start accomplishing tasks immediately so they would maintain interest in the game. From user interviews with students, we found they liked science classes and they appreciated learning through participating in educational games more than traditional instruction. Our user interviews with teachers taught us they have a lot of control over what is used in the classroom, but they have limited time to research technology and no time to deviate from the required curriculum.
We synthesized our interview data using affinity diagramming to develop our problem statement and design principles. The problem statement was ‘Teachers of 3rd through 6th grade students need a supplemental tool for their STEM lessons in order to engage their students in a fun and meaningful experience, and build positive connotations to STEM that encourage further exploration.’ Our design principles were fostering growth, easy to implement, drive it home (as in the design will aid in progressing the game through storytelling), and no previous experience necessary (everyone should be able to jump in and get started easily). We created a persona that represented out student user and one that reflected our teacher user.
There were several options on where to go next. We started by trying several different brainstorming methods until there was some traction on how to start introducing the player to the gaming environment. We also experimented with several ideas on how to let the player know there was an error occurring in an encouraging manner. Along the way there was a focus on making sure the player was being immersed into the game. It took a little while before our mood went from confusion to excitement.
Our final brainstorming activity became a ‘draw a word out of a hat’ activity. Even as remedial as it was compared to other forms of concepting, it actually resulted in engaging me the most in the end. I drew the word ‘elevator’ out of Arron’s hat. It didn’t take me long to imagine how a player might step out of an elevator type environment into the rest of the game. I saw it as a great place to onboard the user. It seemed to me, a user could start interacting with the game while uncovering information needed to complete the game.
Another idea was to have the player wear something on their arm they could put in front of the headset to allow for more control while playing the game. The idea of the player becoming one of the game’s characters would help immerse them into the story. Eventually we thought the wearable control component might be too cumbersome for the target age group, so we moved forward with a control card that would allow for users to see their progress, find help, and see where they were located within the game.
Other concepts included one on ‘balance’ to address error handling, a ‘go back and do it again later’ option for error handling, an error alert, and an error message, also for error handling. There was also a concept to create an avatar for the students to help with the immersion through storytelling aspect. We also had an idea for a teacher’s dashboard to make the game more practical for the classroom. With the concepts developed we moved on to testing.
The second highlight I found was we had the opportunity to test the concepts with teachers and students at the Popup Science Fair in Homewood, IL. The premise of the fair was families shouldn’t have to go into a large city and spend a lot of money to learn about science. We gathered really constructive feedback from the students and teachers we tested. From the results of our wireframe testing in Axure we were able to focus our concepts down to the elevator onboarding premise, avatar creation, teacher’s dashboard, and the control panel. The error alert and error message were combined into a single error handling option.
There was one more round of testing the flow of the minimum viable product. We wanted to know if it worked from end to end. The results brought us to some future considerations. Since the flow went seamlessly, we found where a multiplayer option could be integrated later. There was also a lot of energy about character customization as it applied to the avatar creation in the game. Speech references should also be added later in the game for accessibility and to help students who aren’t reading well yet. Haptic vibrations were seen as a way to help in the error handling aspect.
I was glad to see everyone understood the concept I had developed for the elevator onboarding process. I even went ahead and tested it one last time with a 5-year old to find she grasped the idea of tapping the numbers on the elevator panel to move in sequence through the onboarding process, even though she couldn’t read the content text. I’m glad that test took place. During our final presentation a guest on our panel, Becky Rother with Vokal, asked why the panel didn’t resemble an actual elevator where the numbers went from top to bottom. I explained that the elevator concept really didn’t need to be an actual elevator, but was more of premise for how the player could be introduced into the game. My response put a smile on Becky’s face.
There are a few things that I would do differently.
I would expand the types of people we interviewed to include child psychologists, parents, etc. rather than just focus on teachers and student.
I would do a test run of how my interview questions sounded with real users before testing, especially for something like an event like the Science Popup.
I would work with clients more closely throughout the process to make sure everyone’s expectations were being met. I appeared that while Amanda Thompson and Wesley Virt were aware of what we were being tasked to do, however, Ariella Lehrer seemed to think we were supposed to test other aspects of the game.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the results for Explore Interactive project.
Timeboxing became an integral part of my process.
During the question and answer at the end of our final presentation, I fielded panelists’ questions with confidence.
I improved my Axure skills.
I also learned the importance of having a compelling story when developing a presentation.
Explore Interactive has epanded their platform to include their newest product, MindLabs. They have been awarded a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to boost STEM proficiency through augmented reality play.
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