PRODUCT DESIGN / USER RESEARCH / IxD
/ USER INTERVIEWS
Sentence Soup
Transforming a master educator's board game into digital product on a limited schedule.
Education Technology
SECTOR
Flash Fun Education is pivoting to a digital product from its board game heritage to increase its accessibility. Thanks to COVID-19 distancing guidelines the company has shifted focus. It needs an Minimum Viable Product to present to investors for further development.
CHALLENGE
Web Design | Graphic Design | User Research | Product Design
CONTRIBUTION
Three weeks
TIMELINE
RESEARCH
01
Sentence Soup's creator, Ed Poritt, had laid his game's structure out through the use of many complex, multi-tabbed spreadsheets. When my team was handed these in the discovery phase they left us all blurry-eyed and baffled as to how they related to game play. We needed to understand the game through the context of its simplest form: one round of game play.
Further, we wanted to observe children playing the game so that we could note gaps in understanding – pain points. It was critical that we understood the intended User's ability to comprehend how the number on the dice related to an action to take and its subsequent effect on scoring.
Fortunately Ed was able to set up a session of game play with some neighborhood kids that we could observe play the game, with Ed present to teach the game and keep it moving.
Taking into account that Ed was needed keep game play moving spurred on an internal conversation about the inclusion of affordances that would give guidance as to what the next step should be.
It became obvious that we needed to make helpful features abundant otherwise gameplay would be stifled by "ok, what do I do next?" questions.
If Sentence Soup were to achieve its learning goals the User would need to be compelled to keep going in the absence of supervision.
As we realized what needed to be designed, while it needed to engage kids, was in reality an educational tool we began to pivot towards a more educator-led game flow.
The pivot was a response to a nascent understanding of what the final outcome would need to be: an educational tool, not merely the gamificaton of one.
Survey 2 Respondent - Parents
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Respondents do not typically engage with the learning taking place and often set their kids off on a path of learning and then go about their own business
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Online educational tools are often used on a weekly basis when they are used
The data gathered here helped to validate the effort necessary to incorporate a robust tutorial component.
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Survey 1 Respondent - Children
"Its hard to get children to play educational games, I wish they were more fun"
During the interview process, while waiting for people to get back to us, the team conducted competitive analysis by taking a deep dive into the world of online education games.
While there were myriad games online we didn't really come across any that would be true competitors with Sentence Soup.
None approached the depth of learning that Sentence Soup promoted or even came close to the feature set that Ed envisioned. They either stopped at very rudimentary learning or attempted a "one-size-fits-all" approach to age-appropriateness.
Games were simply not meant to advance with the learner and quickly became moot.
Competitive Analysis
During the interview process, while waiting for people to get back to us, the team conducted competitive analysis by taking a deep dive into the world of online education games.
While there were myriad games online we didn't really come across any that would be true competitors with Sentence Soup.
None approached the depth of learning that Sentence Soup promoted or even came close to the feature set that Ed envisioned. They either stopped at very rudimentary learning or attempted a "one-size-fits-all" approach to age-appropriateness.
Games were simply not meant to advance with the learner and quickly became moot.
Free and paid counterparts we came across online during comp analysis
Some of free and paid counterparts we came across online during comp analysis
Survey 2 Respondent - Parents
Given this, we began to formulate surveys. One targeting children, the other their parents.
The biggest takeaways from these surveys were:
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65% supported that games need to be self-led and have tutorial functionality as most parents are not present once setting a child off on the path of online learning.
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69% expressed the ability to customize an avatar of sorts proved to be a popular reward system.
Taking into account that Ed was needed keep game play moving spurred on an internal conversation about the inclusion of affordances that would give guidance as to what the next step should be.
It became obvious that we needed to make helpful features abundant otherwise gameplay would be stifled by "ok, what do I do next?" questions.
If Sentence Soup were to achieve its learning goals the User would need to be compelled to keep going in the absence of supervision.
Given this, we began to formulate surveys. One targeting children, the other their parents.
Survey 1 Respondent - Children
Given this, we began to formulate surveys. One targeting children, the other their parents.
The biggest takeaways from these surveys were:
-
65% supported that games need to be self-led and have tutorial functionality as most parents are not present once setting a child off on the path of online learning.
-
69% expressed the ability to customize an avatar of sorts proved to be a popular reward system.
-
The second survey we released was
targeted at parents and educators.
DEFINING
THE USER
02
Meet Samantha
We decided that with the time allowed one persona could sufficiently illustrate the prototype's game play. Young Samantha provided the needed user archetype of a child who is motivated improve her grammar skills before heading into 5th grade.
DESIGN
03
The most organized material that was handed over to us to assist our quest were many multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheets that the client had made to organize himself.
As part of our initial discovery we opened these files and our collective jaw dropped. We put the files away knowing that we'd need to revisit them at a later point, with Ed present to help us understand what we were looking at.
To his credit, he had devised a very elaborate structure of categorized word packages, themes, and a logical means of advancing students through learning.
Designing from Excel
Our client had gone as far as hiring a graphic designer to design the packaging for the physical version and we were given access to these files from which to gleen an approved aesthetic.
From these files we were able to bypass the part of the design process that includes discovery of the client's style preferences.
We were able to take not only the color palette from the color styles guide but also create two new identities: one for Flash Fun Education, LLC and one for Sentence Soup, both of which appear at the top of this page.
Hand-Me-Down Styles
Assets handed off from the client's original graphic designer
The team conducted a brief round of sketches but needed to quickly move into medium fidelity wireframes. The compressed timeline meant that each phase needed to move swiftly to allow time for user testing and iteration.
Wireframing
Low fidelity wireframing
Medium fidelity wireframing
Given the compressed timeline we found relief in a relatively quick process of generating a client-approved design. We could now move on to higher fidelity and begin user testing. We found it necessary to bring prototypes into higher fidelity so that we could get feedback from our test subjects
We explained the vision for the prototype as words suspended in soup as if the pasta letters of alphabet soup, a familiar idea to any child. The words would change depending on the phase of sentence building the player was on.
The most organized material that was handed over to us to assist our quest were many multi-tabbed Excel spreadsheets that the client had made to organize himself.
As part of our initial discovery we opened these files and our collective jaw dropped. We put the files away knowing that we'd need to revisit them at a later point, with Ed present to help us understand what we were looking at.
To his credit, he had devised a very elaborate structure of categorized word packages, themes, and a logical means of advancing students through learning.
Our client had gone as far as hiring a graphic designer to design the packaging for the physical version and we were given access to these files from which to gleen an approved aesthetic.
From these files we were able to bypass the part of the design process that includes discovery of the client's style preferences.
We were able to take not only the color palette from the color styles guide but also create two new identities: one for Flash Fun Education, LLC and one for Sentence Soup, both of which appear at the top of this page.
Here I created these two logo treatments to unify the game's identity with the company's
PROTOTYPING
& TESTING
04
Once we had a high fidelity prototype we were able to conduct user testing sessions with three children, ages 9, 13, and 15.
Key Takeaways:
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They wanted to see more color
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They liked the avatar
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Tutorial affordances were too wordy
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They wanted to more confirmation of earning points
User Testing
Invaluable Test Subjects
After the user testing and implementing the feedback we felt that the process had yielded notable and validated results for the final prototype.
Iteration
Before and after changes made on User feedback
Finally, all was brought to together in a final prototype. Well received, the client approved of our solutions and felt that they had sufficient assets to bring to his team of designers, developers, and potential stakeholders to seek funding for further development.
Final Prototype
In order to procure funding Sentence Soup needed a splash site at minimum to introduce Mr. Poritt and the game to the world. We worked with him to create a pricing structure to further its legitimacy as a paid digital product. Further, Mr. Poritt would have numbers to present to potential stakeholders to show that he had thought the project through.
This site was another of my largest single contributions.
Stakeholder Relations
Frankly, at the beginning of the project, morale was less than stellar. With nothing but the nebulous idea of a game and no idea how to translate the excel sheets to a viable educational tool, to say that we were daunted feels like an understatement.
Carefully thinking through each step and taking frequent stock of the next ones allowed the team to execute all needed outcomes within the compressed 3-week timeline.
The project embodies the phrase"trust the process". Doing just that we were able to provide Flash Fun Education with direction, design, and much needed assets to propel them into their next phase of business development.