Team
Role
Timeline
Tools
Solo thesis project
Research, Prototyping / Testing,
Branding
8 months
(September 2020 - April 2021)
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator,
After effects
Overview
During my fourth-year thesis project, I focused on teens protecting themselves from social media. I designed an interactive game where users can have a chance to solve storylines of online incidents and learn from the consequences that it can bestow if they are not careful.
Background
Social media plays a huge role in today’s society. As teenagers are constantly checking up on their social media, they don’t appear to be as mindful enough when it comes to their actions & judgement online.
The
Challenge
Teens struggle to know the privileges and consequences of social media engagement. It's easy for teens to get caught up in peer pressure without recognizing what is safe to share online.
Opportunity
What if we could guide lessons and share social media scenarios for teenagers, by designing an interactive experience to learn from?
The Solution
Mindscape is a card game for teenagers to learn about sharing personal content on social media, as it gives a guided and awareness experience.
Designed for teenagers 13+, with up to 4 players mindscape encourages young youth to think twice before sharing and posting personal or emotional content online as it can lead down to constructive consequences.
Let's set up
Choose your cards
Each card represents a clue about the subject that occurred in an online event.
In total there should be five cards, one of each colour.
Consequences
Venue
Action
Info
Platform
Consequences
Info
Venue
Action
Platform
Let's play
Solve the story
Each set of cards contains multiple icons or illustrative clues for a user to guess what significance the card represents.
Result
Win the game
The user that connects the story of the online event first wins the game
🎉
design process
An in-depth process into the development of research, problem-solving, prototyping, user testing, and branding of the final product.
Researching the problem
I started this project focusing on users that were 50+ struggling with their use of social media. I wanted to gather information about older adults and their confidence level when it came to interacting with social media functions and the use of online privacy without needing assistance. I conducted several user interviews to prove my hypothesis on this subject and secondary research to further support it.
INTERVIEW QUOTES
"In some ways yes and no but I click on the icons, and I find out what they are, I sort of explore a little bit."
INTERVIEW QUOTES
" I typically wouldn’t be involved in any groups on Facebook. That would be my last resort. I don’t have anything to say or share on a regular basis on something like a group."
research findings
01
Right vs. Wrong
Users are aware of what they post based on their purpose for using social media. Whether that’s for family, business, etc. They avoid controversy and exploit posting
02
Free Navigation
03
Social media features
Users fiddle around with their chosen route until they are satisfied, without having the need to ask for assistance.​
Users don’t participate in what each social media platform has to offer. They don’t feel the need to use some features each platform offers. Such as groups, marketplace, and games. etc.
✨
Pivot
✨
After confirming that there was no significant issue with older adults and their use of social media, I realized I was looking at the wrong target audience. Instead, I quickly switched to looking at teenagers and their use of social media engagement and online privacy.
( Revaluating my target audience I was able to only conduct secondary research that included the use of online articles and observational research of social media apps and the teens I worked with at my part-time job. )
I was interested to understand what causes and prevents, a teenager as they engage with social media. I created a visual anecdote grid that showcases barriers that a teenager can face by being online, and some possible actions during social media encounters.
users
needs
insights
Underestimate the consequences of their online privacy
Find they are restricted to full social media experiences
Listen to their peers for advice more than their parents
Believe they are more than capable of handling their privacy online by themselves
Take privacy of their online life
more seriously
Understand the uses of social media privileges & consequences
The user is super active on social media, but is not careful enough about what they post, what they like etc.
Ideation + brainstorming
I wanted to start exploring possible ideas that can help create an engaging experience for teenagers to learn from. Focusing more on the number of ideas rather than the quality.
stroke of inspiration
Knowing that my target demographic was teenagers I wanted to find the best suitable solution that can make something exciting enough for youth to engage with. Observing such games teens play today, I was inspired by cards against humanity to create a card game as the best option to push forward with.
As with any game, there should always be a storyline for user engagement. I started drafting out storylines that would be taken seriously enough to grab my target audience's attention, along with thinking about how I wanted to unfold the structure of gameplay.
Game play structure
I focused on creating a relevant narrative that could relate to certain situations teens face while being online. Such as online banking, cyberbullying, online dating etc. By pointing out these subjects I started to explore different ways I could flesh out the game for the user to play. Such as ordering the narrative by category of topics, actions, platforms, and decisions that went into the story.
Drafting + Prototyping
After finalizing my research and confirming my insights, I started to design prototype structure of the game.
-1.jpg)
Prototyping +
User testing
I conducted a user testing session by recruiting 6 participants to play the game, and receive feedback in order to continue to push design implementation. I had users try to solve the significance of each colour card , guess what it meant, and allow the user to connect the storyline together.
Test tasks
solve the meaning behind
each colour card
connect the storyline based on the clues & user assumptions
Test metrics
How long it takes for a user to connect the meaning and storyline of the cards
Completion of the game
Test scoring
Instructions & clairity
Visual asthetics
Task difficulty
Testing Feedback
I think visuals would be nice as an option that doesn’t require much text. If it was a visual compnenent maybe one word ?.
The hints are not obvious but not impossible.
The overall game was good but was confused around the format you wanted me to give it in? If anything I read it backwards.
Final Design Look
After recieving feedback from initial user testing and making necessary changes to tighten up design structure, this is the final design I decided to go forward with. Keeping design aesthetics consistent, mindscape shows a fun, clean, and positive look to attract my target demographic.
Style Guide
#16166D
#F0A125
#638BF2
#F14F45
#3EA7E0
Typface
Aa
Circular STD
Logo / Identity
