The Brain Architecture Game began as a tabletop educational game designed to help teach how early childhood experiences influence lifelong resilience. A joint project between the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center at the University of Southern California, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh, and Frameworks Institute, supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The game is designed to encourage a dialogue among participants in classrooms, workshops, and at conferences. It is played in teams of 4-6 individuals, with as many as 300 participants total.
The main activities in this game are "building a brain" (which you see represented with pipe-cleaners, straws, and weights) and discussing the outcomes. In addition to the supplies for building the brain, each team needs a set of playing cards and printouts of rules and scorecards, which can pose a barrier to participation. Keeping score and logging progress is a very manual process, in addition to building the brain, which should be the focus.
As the UX design lead, I worked alongside my creative director, project manager, and technical architect to gain an understanding of the requirements and overall vision from the game co-creator. Together we planned out a timeline for discovery, design, build, test.
I recommended user testing during design phase, but couldn't make it work with the timeline. I opted for some ad-hoc testing by adding enough interaction to my wireframes that they could serve as working prototype. The game can actually be played beginning to end using the wireframes, which allowed us to gauge timing and flow, and address anything clunky before heading down the path of visual design or code.
During wireframe creation I'd identified areas where foundational design production could begin, and brought in two designers to work in parallel with the UX timeline.
Key activities:
Our client was very happy with what we demoed at the completion of the project. We finished on time and within budget, and received an easy sign-off.
At last status update, all assets and code were handed off to the client who took ownership of beta testing and all subsequent development and feature addition.
The topic of early childhood experiences and resiliency is something I care about deeply. It was very rewarding to get to work with someone whose game makes such a lasting impact to its participants. Helping see her vision through to take the game to the next level was a great experience.
I would have loved the opportunity to test this incrementally with users, interview or survey them, or at least observe a group playing the game using the app. I'd want to know if the digital version succeeded in increasing participation. Was it as easy to use as we'd hoped? Were players able to move through the steps more quickly and have more time at the end for discussion? Were there any small improvements we might have been able to accommodate in a second round of updates? Due to budgetary and timeline constraints, we were unable to do a proper follow-up.