We were given a prompt to encourage people to discover new games and share their discoveries with their friends.

As our first Creative Jam, our team of 3 decided we should tackle a specific target demographic rather than too wide of a range. After some deliberation, we decided that we were most interested in targeting a children's demographic because our team had users to test our product on hand (AKA neices and nephews.) With our demographic decided and our users screaming in the background of our virtual calls, we started brainstorming ideas that would interest kids.

I proposed the idea of superheroes because every kid dreamed about having some sort of superpower right?  But how could we use superheroes to inspire children to explore video games? Eventually the idea of "training" your superhero was proposed, giving a quantifiable goal through levels. 

Then came the question of how to actually train your superhero through video games. Limited by realism, we rejected the idea of "completing a game" since we had no way of tracking completion. Our next proposed solution was more realistic, quizzing a child on a simple but related topic to the game (ex. "What game is NOT in Wii Sports?") Although this solution also had the limitations of a user taking guesses, we decided this solution was the most realistic. We also realized this method grants the ability for the user to choose whether they want to buy the game and play it or simply read about it to learn more. We believed that even if a child [or their parents] cannot purchase the game, they can still practice reading or learning on their own.

We also came to the realization that games could be grouped together into "skills" that a child would be encouraged to train up so their superhero gets "stronger" or "smarter." This would help the users find similar games. For example, if a child enjoyed Candy Crush, they'll probably like similar puzzle games like Bejewelled. Both falling into the "smarter" skill, when the child looks to train their superhero, they'll be inclined to try the other games since they liked one in the group already.

Running (flying?) with the superhero theme, we had a solid foundation to begin our project with. We looked at games and websites geared to children such as PBSKids or Fortnite which features bright, loud colours. Grounding our app with a mainly blue colour scheme like the sky, we knew we could use other bright colours on top of the blue. Seen in nature, bright colours work very well against blue. 

Throw in figures of "Captain Valor" and little aliens for the superheroes to fight (created in Illustrator) and we hoped that cute bubbly graphics would welcome kids.

We looked at other popular apps like Clash of Clans and realized that forming groups with your friends was a fun way of convincing kids to participate with others. We decided to add this feature in in the form of a friends list and making Teams of superheroes with your friends. 

Another feature we discovered was enticing to children was the ability to customize their characters. Seen in games like Pokemon X/Y and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, we decided to add a shop to buy clothing for your superhero using coins you gained from the quizzes.

In terms of design, we noticed the need for large buttons. Due to the screensize of a mobile app, small buttons can be difficult to press. If the buttons in question are important and often used ones, it is important to help the user interact with them frequently.

Another design decision is the use of simple language and pictures. This is seen on the "What do you want to train today?" screen, where simple images are placed beside very simple words like "stronger." This helps children interpret what the button will lead to in the most simple way, either by reading the big easy word or looking at the picture of a weight. 

With our target demographic having nothing better to do during quarantine, we recruited them into a short usability test which had them navigate the app.

Although the test was informal, the general consensus was that children were familiar enough to navigate through the app based on previous experiences. Although some of the users were uninterested with the idea of teams and more interested in playing the quizzes, this may be due to the lack of time during testing.

Although this project was simple in design and features but was a personal turning point for my love of Adobe XD. This taught me so much about Adobe XD’s features, like components and hover states, and designing for specific users. After hearing excited laughs of users testing our project, I was addicted to the thrill of making things for users that make them happy.

Due to the lack of time of 3 days and our inexperience, we weren't able to make interesting animations seen in other Adobe XD projects. We were proud of this first project, but it certainly left holes in the user journey that we weren't able to address such as rewarding medals and more interactions with your friends.