Assignment 5 - Artifact Redesign to Enable New Forms of Interaction/Game Play

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INLS 092- Emering Issues in Information Science

 

Persona Description

The two personas from Assignments 3 and 4 will be used in this assignment as they are. Refer to those individual pages for detailed description.

 

 

Brainstorming Ideas

  • simulation fishing rod – REJECT – doesn’t fit activities of our personas, and no practical implementation
  • “put the ball in the hole game” – ACCEPT –not sure of the correct name for this, but basically a digital version of the game where there's a tiny ball in an enclosure that you tilt to get it through a maze and into a hole. With the inclusion of a gyroscope into our initial design, we could create a digital version of this.
  • solitaire – REJECT –too complex and screen is too small to play it effectively.
  • tag – ACCEPT – using Bluetooth, a game could be played in which players must catch one another and hold their watch within proximity of the other for a period of time to change "it" status.
  • war game – ACCEPT - using the GPS, players could hunt one another in a game similar to combat.
  • minesweeper – REJECT – screen too small, no stylus to click on small mines, etc.
  • trivia – ACCEPT – name that tune like on the iPod, etc.
  • matching game – REJECT – screen too small, can't get enough squares on-screen to see enough things to remember.
  • pacman - ACCEPT - using a limited number of buttons, the movement of the game can easily be done.
  • tetris - ACCPEPT - same as pacman
  • snake - ACCEPT - same as above
  • tron - ACCEPT - same as above
  • flash card - ACCEPT - could be implemented with PC to create a series of vocabulary words to study in a game-style.
  • blackjack - ACCEPT - with only a few cards on-screen, easy to play, and could be used with Bluetooth to play against friends.

 

 

Description of Redesign

With the above redesigns to implement forms of gameplay, we feel that we accurately seek out the target audience of college students that still like to have fun. With our personas being studious individuals, they would like the use of a flash card game to help them study when on the bus, etc, and being active, the tag and war game would be very appealing as well. Since we want to keep the watch at a reasonably small size, we don't want to put a very large screen on it- therefore some games simply are not feasible and were rejected for that very reason. At the same time, we would have limited controls with the watch and wanted to keep that in consideration when making the new designs. To help make sure the games did not take up too much memory space, we wanted to keep the majority of them fairly simple, but also give the user several options of games to play. For iPod users, they know that having only a few games (only 1 game on my ancient 2nd generation iPod) can get old really fast, and by having more than a handful, it offers a good variety. We also did not want to add a game that is completely new and unknown to eliminate as much of a learning curve as possible. People like to be able to pick something up and just use it without having to figure it out. Keeping this in mind, we decided to use a few classic game

 

 

Scenario Description

On a Friday afternoon in the Spring time, Kate and her boyfriend Danny decided to have some fun and play a game with some friends using their new watches.  They were all going to meet in Polk Place by the flag pole at 4:30pm.  After Kate got off of work at 3:00pm, she went to the bus stop to catch the U bus from the School of Social Work, where she works at her Workstudy job.  As she walks out the door, she sees that she just missed her bus, and knows that there will be a fifteen-minute wait until the next bus comes around.  To pass this time, she decided to sit on the bench and play PacMan.  After playing for a few minutes she got to level four but could not get any further so she decided to try her hand in the Music Trivia game.  After leaving a hard day at work, she did not feel like studying with the flash card game, using extra brain cells, so to let them rest for a while she decided to listen to some music and play the trivia game to keep it interesting.  She pulled out her Bluetooth headset and the game began playing random 20-second clips from her music library.   By time she was able to correctly guess the name of five songs and missed three or four, she saw people around her standing up in preparation for the bus.  She looked up and saw her bus coming to a stop, so she put her headphones away and prepared to get on. 
           
When she got on the bus, she saw that it was full, so she grabbed hold of a pole on the side of the bus for helping people retain their balance and began listening to her “bus music” playlist until she arrived at Polk Place.  When she got there, she saw Danny and their friends waiting for her.  Danny and Kevin were playing Blackjack against each other via Bluetooth, and the others were collectively playing the music trivia game.  She got off the bus and they all greeted one another and broke off into teams.  They then began running around Polk Place playing tag, in which they had to catch the person that was “it” and place their watch within a matter of inches of the other for 5 seconds to obtain the “it” status and begin running from the others.  After a designated period of time, the person that was “it” longest would win the round.  After a while of playing, they all got tired and decided to go get ice cream together, and then go home for the evening.  s that almost everyone is familiar with.

 

 

Annotated Storyboard

 

 

click to enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall Write-up

When trying to think of games that would be ideal for a watch, we came up with a lot of things right away, but we realized we had a problem. Though some games were unique, interesting or quirky, they did not fit the persona or typical activities of our personas. We first though of a fishing rod attachment. This device could potentially measure how far your 'reel' went, how deep it went in the water, the wind speed and direction, etc. All of which are neat features, but we realized that first, the average college student doesn't regularly go fishing, and second, neither of our personas of our target population had fishing in their interests or as a pastime.  The average college student has a lot of instances during the day when they have about 10 to 15 minutes of time that they are just waiting. It may be waiting in line for something, waiting for the bus, waiting for class to start, or waiting for people to arrive for a group meeting.  These small spaces of time are not ideal for studying or beginning a project. By the time a student gets their books out and gets himself or herself situated, they only have 5 to 10 minutes to get into study mode and get some work done. As an alternative studying, they could take this time to destress, and relax with a game that is provides a respite to the constant work and chaos.  The ideal game would be simple, slightly challenging, but nothing that would take more than 5 minutes to get a satisfying amount of playing time in.
           
We tried to come up with games that were similar to games on the computer. First games like solitaire and minesweeper came to mind, but we had to reject both of these games. The LCD screen is only so big, and games like these would require either a stylus or pushing several buttons to keep scrolling over cards or screen spaces to get to what a user would want to select. Though a stylus could be a feasible utility of the watch, it also comes with several problems. If the stylus is ever lost or broken, users are not likely to replace it, and then the games will not be played. Along the same lines, if a game uses the watch’s buttons instead of a stylus, games like solitaire and concentration (a card matching/memory game) would require a bigger screen and a lot of scrolling through the game cards to be a highly used game.
           
After drawing these conclusions, we turned to games that could easily use the watch buttons. Games like Pacman, Tetris, Tron, and blackjack could all be easily used. Even in games that involve a lot of motion like Pacman, the four buttons that normally are used to change the watch’s display could be changed into up, down, left, and right buttons in game mode. The same goes for Tetris, where even just two buttons can be used; one to change the angle of the falling shape, and another to make the piece land.  Blackjack is a big plus if just using a few buttons, because a user can just select whether or not they want another card.
           
Besides card games, a user could also play audio trivia games. By making use of bluetooth headphones, this could even be a hands-free game . The game could scroll through songs in the user’s mp3 library and play 10 or 15 second clip. The user could then select from a list of 3-5 songs depending on the difficulty level, and use just one or two of the watches normal buttons. The user would get points based on how quickly they selected the right answer, and how many tries it took them to correctly guess.  The game would not even have to involve the LCD screen. It could be purely a hands-free game so in cases where our persona Kate has to stand on the bus, she could continue to enjoy the game without having to select the right answer on the screen.
           
The games feature can be all fun and games, but it could also be educational. Many students need make flashcards to help them study for exams, and the watch could help them meet this need.  After downloading a flashcard set for a class, while waiting for the bus or waiting in line, the student can pick a flashcard list set and review terms or definitions. The card could show the definition, and the student can think of the word in their head. After pressing a button, the card will flip over, and the student can confirm if their answer was right or not. If their answer was right, the flashcard will move into the done pile, but if the student was wrong, it will get shuffled back in and keep coming up until the student is correct in guessing the term.
           
Taking games to another level, beyond just a tool to pass time in between errands, the watch could take on interactive qualities to function as a social tool. It could function as an electronic tool in a game of tag. If all participants had the watch, they could run after each other, and when tagged the watched could have a message coming up saying they’re caught. Or, it could be used in a scenario like capture the flag, and use the GPS function to show the location of all members of a team (or the opposing team) to help in strategy and planning. While this may seem excessive, it is actually useful, especially when playing on a large field, like a golf course or a camping ground.
           
Overall games should be more geared towards genres that can be played for short amounts of time. Our target audience may have 10 to 15 times a day that they have 5 or 10 minutes of waiting, and since this is not a good enough amount of time to study (unless they’re using the flashcard feature) a game is the perfect way to pass the time. Theoretically , students can just wait in lines and at bus stops, but most are so used to being plugged into some kind of electronic medium, whether it is in ipod or wireless computing, that many are looking for things to do during these intervals.