The Brief
To design a service or a product for my capstone project with a teamate, on a topic of personal choice. We chose to create a service on the devastating 1967 bushfires. We managed this brief through remote collaboration. My teamate was located on field in Tasmania where we based this geolocation game upon.
The Objective
To educate people about natural disasters and how to live with the land with the aid of storytelling.
Tools
Project Management: Slack, Zoom, OmniPlan
Research: Semi-structured interviews, Mappings, Card sort, A/B Testing, Contextual Inquiry, Click Testing.
Interface: Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, Figma, Protopie
Idea Pitch Poster
Background
We often forget the past events that happened on the land we live or travel to, especially when it is caused by nature; the pain might vanish when the wound is healed. Catastrophic events kept happening as we turned a deaf ear to the screams from nature. This project is based on one of the most heartbreaking phenomena in Australia, the bushfires, to guide us to rethink our relationship with the land, so that we might be able to cultivate another way to live with the land.
Problem space: To raise awareness regarding the bushfires and build a connection amongst city folks to relate with the land they live on.
Pre-Production Research
The Pre-production research included myriad of methods to approach the given problem space:
-
Survey interviews,
-
Mappings- Empathy, Affinity and Journey map,
-
Competitive Analysis,
-
Persona building,
-
Card sorting
-
Paper prototyping and
-
Testing through contextual inquiry, A/B and click testing.
Empathy Map
Affinity Map
Competitor Analysis
How Might We
-
How might we raise awareness of the land through bushfire storytelling?
-
How might we guide people to care about their surroundings?
-
How might we generate an experience to let people emotionally connect with nature?
-
How might we bring people closer together through the history of their surroundings?
-
How might we create vivid experiences of travel to increase their knowledge about nature?
Card Sort
The similarity matrix shows that around 12 cards are highly resolved (>60%) under categories that are mentioned through the dendrograms. They represent busy, city life, 21st century lifestyle, Camping, night walks, Warmth, fire, and the senses. Things like hiking, codependent, worship, connection, new experiences, feeling all stay under the 33% resolution which might indicate that the participants were unable to identify with these experiences or relate to the cards.
Card sort similarity matrix
The dendrogram shows that the wildlife card was not sorted under more than 50% in both the methods which displays a mental disconnection from this card which didn’t fit in any natural, city or experience categories. Five senses and the city life was sorted most definitively by the participants which may represent their geographical background of city people. Natural experiences, codependency, stories, community were one of the many cards that fell under the unresolved categories. This is where our project focuses on the city audience to learn to relate to these experiences and reaffirms are supposition of their disconnect.
Best Merge Dendrogram
Persona
Name: Yael Oz
Age: 25
Gender: Prefer not to tell
Occupation: Slashie
Archetype: The Sage
Goals: Enjoy the present time, living in balanced and liberated lifestyle, Visit Antarctica
Motivations: Travel, learn and meet new people
Frustrations: Unable to recognise the mushrooms’ identity. Easy to get bored by “standard things”. Materialism. Selfish people.
Bio:
Yael was a bookkeeper who enjoyed travelling. When the pandemic happened, she lost her job, so she decided to use the gap year to tour around the country she grew up in. She bought a van and hit on the road. She travels on a low budget and is keen to meet new people especially those with whom she finds it hard to have conversations out of her comfort zone. She believes that it will be a good idea to volunteer at a local’s place in exchange for an accommodation.
Scenario:
Yael has the road trip with her new family when the farm has holidays, she learns tons of new things from her family, such as how to recognise the mushroom or build up the tippies with natural resources. She feels her horizon is expanding consistently and she never thinks there is so much fun from nature and tons of things she can learn from it. She enjoys her new lifestyle; however, she feels there is a void between herself and nature as she is only travelling but is not able to acknowledge the stories of the travelled land. This missing connection becomes vivid when she happens to tour the places that were affected by natural disasters..
Storyboard
Proposal
A geolocation based game, Landmate.
Presentation Board
Materials for the game
1) The Landmate App : A free download
2) A mission box containing map, other materials to aid the treasure hunt: To be bought on the app and collected from visitor centers
3) A group of players: To travel, bond and learn together
User Flow
Concept Moodboard
Connection
Game Levels
A route was planned for the treasure hunt that included scenic tourist spots as well as spots where catastrophic events took place.
The first level of the game introduced the fire danger rating (FDR) of the Tasmanian fire service, the second introduced materials that caused fire at a location, with the final level of finding an AR based tree who tells a tale of how their forest wiped out and builds a connection with the user.
Level 01
Level 10
Paper Prototype
Landing page
Play as a group or individual
Navigate your route
Pick a mission
Solve puzzles
Multiple missions
Final Prototype - iPhone7
Home Screens
Game Section- Onboarding
Game Section- Missions
Conclusion
As a newbie at designing a serious game, more time was spent to set up the game, especially how to make it friendly and fun to users but still retain its educational purpose. Sometimes, cultural appropriation also had to be considered as it might involve sensitive events. Group work was another challenge for us as we all individual and have our opinion. We believe that after this project, we perish our interpersonal and communication skill and much understanding of the technique of collaboration. I love this concept thoroughly and have a firm faith that Serious Real Game could bring a brand new way to raise awareness about the natural events happening in Australia or other countries.
Demo
Part One
Click anywhere on screen to open demo
Part Two
Click anywhere on screen to open demo