This another week closer to Soft Opening, We have been extremely focused on polishing what we have and getting it ready to show our product to faculty. We still have some features to add to our applications. We decided to redesign the UI on the Elkonin Box, so it will help teachers to prepare the class better. We are trying to help more students with Dyslexia, so we are planning to publish our products on Google Play, and more students with dyslexia can benefit from our applications.
When it comes to the game on the Promethean Board, we are focusing on the whole interface design and giving a better visual experience to both teachers and students.
The Soft Opening on Monday went really well. Showing the whole process off to our faculties, they found us had the great progress from the halves. But, there are still some problems we need to solve.
Need to finish all the features
This is what we need to focus from now to the final. The reporting system has already been in its progress. We will refine both of our applications.
Playtest your teacher documentation and tools
Since the playtests we did are mainly focus on usability, and teachers have not been exposed to the preparation system. We planned to playtest the teacher documentation next Thursday. Random rewards
Some faculty might found it is hard to understand the reward system. Based on the playtest we did, we found student like the reward system, and they would like to find the difference they have on their tiles with their friends. We are going to playtest the random reward again with kids with dyslexia. The problem will mainly focus on:
1. Will the complexity of the tiles influence students’s activeness.
2. Will kids and clients find it hard to connect the random reward system to the game play.
Coming to the end of the this semester, we are preparing for the trailer and the documentation. We generated this script for video shooting.
Jett (Introduce WordCraft)
Questions to answer:
What is the project about in two sentences? Who are the target audience and what’s special about them (dyslexia, elkonin box)? What are the technological constraints or task?
What it is:
WordCraft presents language learning games to students dyslexia. It is composed of three separate applications 1) digital elkonin box with Chromebook 2) expanded version of new game with Promethean Board and 3) preparation system for teachers.
Purpose:
Partnering with Wheeling Country Day School, WordCraft aims to expand the current static in-class setting to more interactive and effective experience that suits well with the need of our target audience. The task was specifically given by our client which is to take advantage of multi-user display (Promethean Board) and touch-screen laptop (Chromebook), language learning process will be more engaging, fun, and dynamic.
Olivia (Production Process – Design Pillars)
Questions to answer:
What is your approach in developing this project?
- Research Focus
One of the most trickiest part of our project is the our target audiences are dyslexic – it brings lot of constraints in design but narrower focus on the target needs – We spent much time in researching the target audience – their learning process / traits as well as the specific request – elkonin box.
- After researching, we came up with these four pillars:
Educational – keep the core value of elkonin box – promethean board with reinforcing the phoneme awareness and spelling exercise as well
Engaging – explain – interactive – elkonin box provides immediate feedbacks
Encouraging – explain; reward system
Collaborative – explain
What are the goals of this project (design pillars)
Jingya (Elkonin Box)
Questions to answer:
What is Elkonin Box (again in more detail)?
Elkonin Box is a validated tool for students with dyslexia to help them improve their phoneme awareness – and our client’s request was to digitize this experience. Originally, physical Elkonin Box is composed of ——-.
What are the features (especially that is different from physical Elkonin Box)?
As a designer, what we tried the most in re-building this experience is to deliver the important effective features of Elkonin Box such as —. Then, we tried to come up with some elements that technology can contribute to the experience which are immediate feedback system and rewarding experience —–
Immediate feedback is good b/c —
Rewarding experience is good b/c —
Ultimately, making this game more engaging and encouraging with the benefit of technology.
Rebecca (Promethean Board)
Questions to answer:
Explain the game in two-three sentences.
What is so special about this game?
– especially emphasizing its high engaging / collaborative nature with potentially educational value in it
Patrick (Preparation System)
Questions to answer:
Introduce preparation system
What it is, and how it operates
Aside from students, WordCraft provides a solid tool for teachers to be more prepared and efficient in class. For each game experience, we have built two preparation systems accordingly.
Explain
How does it benefits both teacher and students
It makes a great cycle → Teachers spend their time in preparing class → making class more high quality → students learn and have fun
Attached are the visual and UI design we have now for promethean board
