Researchers from SocialMovez and fourteen enthusiastic kids from the Welzijnsorganisatie SOL met for a design afternoon in Rotterdam. The aim? To get feedback and creative design ideas to further develop a fun and engaging online chat game with and for young people. This game will be part of an upcoming digital health intervention. Let us take you through the steps of our design journey and give you tips for an exciting and insightful design session. 

 

Step 1: Defining the purpose of the design session.

Tip: Set a clear goal for the session: Involve children to create new ideas from scratch or rather to gain feedback for an existing idea?
The purpose of the session at SOL was to receive feedback on an existing idea for a chat game. The game idea was inspired by the popular game Among Us, where players have to find the 'mole' by asking smart questions to other group members. Building on this idea, researchers and children discussed the concept (e.g. what do children like/dislike about the game concept?), tested a prototype version of the game (e.g. is the app intuitive for children to use?) and designed new ideas for the game (e.g. drawing game avatars).

 

Step 2: Provide fun and engaging activities.

Tip: Provide activities that allow children to express their ideas in a fun and engaging way. Give them autonomy and be aware of children's attention span!

Specifically, let them do rather than listen, offer different kinds of activities (e.g. drawing, moving around the room, writing, discussing) and give them the freedom to choose an activity whenever possible so that they can use their talents and stay interested. For example, in the SOL session we started with an energiser and played an offline version of the game while moving around the room. To find out what topics the children were passionate about, they chatted in pairs about a topic of their choice. For the second half of the session, the children could choose whether they wanted to test the usability of the chat game or rather brainstorm new ideas for the look and feel. While half of the group chatted enthusiastically about unmasking the mole, the other half preferred to get creative with pen and paper. 

 

Step 3: Ask and listen.

Tip: Ask questions without judgement and be an active listener.

Now it is your turn to be open to feedback and additional ideas from the users. For example, for the sessions at SOL, we prepared facilitator questions for different discussions with the children. During the discussions we asked follow up questions to clarify their answers and get more details. 

 

Step 4: Go back to the drawing board.

Tip: Now that you have gathered many new insights, you can discuss with your colleagues how you can incorporate as many relevant insights as possible.

This starts with making sure that you keep a good record of the results/insights of the session (e.g. taking notes, taking pictures, collecting worksheets). In order to incorporate all these insights, it can be helpful to discuss them and make decisions together. Our SocialMovez team had a meeting to make design decisions based on the insights for each different screen in the game.

 

Over the coming weeks, our game development team will be working hard implementing the insights from the sessions into our chat game. Curious to see the results? Stay tuned!