Week 14: Softs

This week we started off with a bang – i.e., softs presentations. Faculty came to our project room two by two to try out or product and give feedback on what they liked or didn’t like. It went… okay. In general, everyone felt that the mechanics of our three minigames (Prediction, Collection, and Connect the Dots) were enjoyable, and enriched the experience of watching a baseball game. However, there were some areas where improvement could definitely be made:

  • Our tutorial screens for all minigames were too long and complicated. People tended to skip them to avoid reading a wall of text, and weren’t sure what to do when the game started.
  • Among our three games, the Collection UI was the most confusing. Faculty members tried to interact with the game before cards had been dealt to them, and were confused when nothing happened. Additionally, most people failed to notice the goal that had been assigned to them (for example, “Collect three unique out cards” because of the goal’s location and size on the screen.
  • Twice throughout the day, the app crashed. Faculty members impressed upon us the importance of having a stable app going forward.
  • Faculty members felt that the Connect the Dots game did not accurately represent traditional connect the dots games, because not all the dots were visible at the start of the game. Thus, the traditional draw of a connect the dots game – trying to figure out what the picture is before it is fully filled in – wasn’t delivered.

For the rest of the week, we worked on improving upon those first three bullets above.

  • Tutorials were simplified, and where possible, full tutorial screens were replaced with tool tips.
  • The Collection UI was altered such that the user’s assigned goal, as well as three always-available goals, appear as constant elements on the Collection screen, and each goal lights up when the user has cards that fulfill that goal. (At that point, the user can interact with the goal UI elements to submit their set of cards for points.)
  • Programmers utilized try-catch statements to ensure the app never crashes.

For Connect the Dots, we wanted to consult with one faculty member in particular, Brenda, before we made changes. We were unable to connect with Brenda last week, so that is one of our first priorities this week.