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This was a 2-month project for an intermediate Experience Design course where I learned to incorporate UX principles and Game Design Principles into the design process.
I was overseeing the important steps of the design process, designed the UI Guide and applied it to the high fidelity mockup.
**Proposal** > Research > Persona > Feature Brainstorm > User Flow > Prototyping > User Testing > Features > Reflection
Some insights into the domain we were pursuing.
We started with the idea that we wanted to create an exercise app for kids in order to support childhood health. Very early on, we decided to incorporate game-centric features in order to appeal to kids and keep them interested. We wanted the main feature of the game revolving around step tracking as a form of exercise that wouldn’t be too intensive yet would still get them moving.
App design and Game design are not exactly the same… I do not usually let any game app ideas proceed very far in this class.
For all team members, it was our first time working on creating an app, and also the first time to ever create a game. Having to quickly learn and incorporate UX and game principles in a tight timeline was one of the biggest challenges for this project. As a project manager, I was worried at first, but then I quickly realized it was a great learning opportunity for all of us. I took the initiative to learn the principles, share resources, and support the team throughout the process.
Due to ethical concerns, it was impossible for us to directly reach out to our main user: the children.
I then came up with the idea that short interviews should be conducted with people who deal with child health on a regular basis: fitness trainers, parents, nurses as well as people who used to struggle with physical inactivity when they were young.
Findings from our primary research.
Based on our research, the North America’s circumstance of physical inactivity was linked to the increase of access to electronic devices. Instead of taking away the device, we think of creating a fun, entertaining exercise mobile app that could encourage children to get more active. At the time, POKEMON GO was also a good example of how we could incorporate physical activity into gameplay.
Findings from our secondary research.
Aside from our main user which is the child, we also included a parent persona. With these two personas, we were able to explore the context in which the game app would be played in a group setting/party mode.
Our two personas together.
We conducted research on other game apps to understand their game plays and how they motivate users to keep engaging in the game. At first, we came up with a list of features that a game generally has and laid them out on our sketch home screen.
We quickly realized we would not have enough time to develop all these features within a short amount of time.
A better approach would be to focus primarily on the most essential features: the step tracker with steps goal, the enemies to fight, the rewards and the party tab.
Our sketch homepage with all the features. We found it hard to finish developing all of these in a short amount of time.