GRAND Interactives
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Welcome to the GRAND Interactives project site. From here you can find documents and resource links pertaining to the project this group is working on.
Research Methods
Methods for Game Design
Games, systems, tools, and design methodologies for designing both physical and digital games.
Game Design Narratives
Stories, narratives, and examples of real-world game development projects.
Assessment Tools
Information about the assessment tools we are developing
Literature Review & Precises
Literature related to our experiments
Interactivity and Touch
Information around our research on tactility, interactivity and touch.
Geolocation Based Games
Survey of geolocation based games.
Game of Writing
Documents related to the development of a writing game.
Feature list
This is a list of features and feature groups in the
application. The purpose in listing these is to provide a way for
Dr. Rockwell to rank them in order of importance with some
context.
Note: PMT is Project/Milestone/Task
1-2-3 signup/splash page
Sketch: GWRIT-MS3-3 pg 1
Provides brief description of the game, simple account sign up
instructions, and existing account login.
Concerns
Improvements
- include a tutorial video
Tree Navigation
Sketch: most pages
Provides a visual indication of project scope, user location, and
navigation.
Concerns
- it doesn't scale beyond 20 or so items. With good organization, this can be minimized.
Improvements
- drag and drop PMT ordering
- integrated progress bar to show what PMT states are at all levels
- simple indicator for task completion
Main PMT interface
Sketch: most pages
Provides access to important PMT information and functions: title,
description, tags, main content, words/pages written and
done/delete/export/save.
Concerns
- repetition of done/delete/export/save seems like a good idea but causes space problems
Improvements
- Timer and multimedia additions for PEARL v2
- through font style and colour, visually indicate which boxes are editable
Estimate productivity
Sketch: shown expanded GWRIT-MS3-3 pg 4
Provides opportunity for user to estimate the work involved in the
given PMT.
Concerns
- it makes the most sense if this panel is contextual, but it could become confusing. Repeating the PMT level within the panel might help or other visual technique
- progress bar was originally located inside this panel and is now repeated above the main PMT panel. It needs to be in both places, but again some visual distinction might be required.
Improvements
- include a column for actual hours worked and actual pages/words
finished that works similarly to the progress bar (automatically
calculated unless the user changes it
- there are too many little boxes to fill out in this interface. Visualizing this productivity (in the vein of the progress bar) would be a vast improvement
Profile menu
Sketch: most pages
Provides access to profile information: login/out, username logged
in, and a link to manage the profile.
Writing tips
Sketch: most pages
Provides random writing tips. Example tips will be included in the
prototype.
Concerns
- requires significant development to create useful writing tips
Improvements
- drawn from external sources
- users add their own with a voting system so the good ones rise to the top
Writing stats
Sketch: most pages
Provides very basic textual record of writing and PMT
progress.
Concerns
- text-based is simple, but research shows that visual improvement is more powerful for increasing game-based drive
Improvements
- graphical expression of same stats
- controls to allow user to select which stats to show
- automatically feature most impressive stat
Tag search
Sketch: GWRIT-MS3-3 pg 12
Provide results for searched tags so that users can quickly
navigate to certain PMTs.
Concerns
Improvements
- multi-tag search
- multi-PMT edit, based on selected tags
Help
Sketch: Examples shown on many pages near the words/pages
infomation at the bottom of the main PMT edit area
Simple pink ? icons with tooltip help to explain
parts of the interface.
Concerns
- these are appropriate for simple, 10 word or less, information. They should not be used very often or with more dense information. Every ? could indicate a place to improve the interface
Improvements
- The first one has been placed beside the words/pages area to say 250 words/page. Where else should these be?
Competition
Sketch: MS3-Sketch-5.pdf pg 1-5
Provide basic competition interface with add/remove competitor and
comparison of competitor statistics.
Concerns
- My stats is not great. Perhaps "my log"
- "Add competitor" tab is more a control than a navigation so it might be better as a button. The trouble is a) where does that button go and b) where do you go when you press that button. Currently, the context is sensible and predictable to the user. Perhaps a combined approach like browsers do with the + beside the tabs for new tabs. Though when there are no competitors yet, the + will be ambiguous
Improvements
- make information/views more contextual
- add instant message brag/chat
- more "live" information about competitor actions/progress
Profile
Sketch: MS3-Sketch-5.pdf pg 6
Provide basic profile functions for changing screen name, email,
and password.
Awards/achievements
Sketch: MS3-Sketch-5.pdf pg 6
Provide award display for basic game-driven motivation.
Concerns
Improvements
- award-specific view for detailed explanation of award, date acquired etc.
- an impending awards panel (could be a way to provide missions/quests)
- a link to a list of all awards
Notification
Sketch: MS3-Sketch-Notification.pdf
Provide control over user notification of system events (finished
PMT, reminders of work to be finished etc.)
Concerns
- This has no place in the menu structure at the moment. It will likely go in the profile menu (with profile and logout)
- I had hoped to get away with email as an archive of events, but we may need an event log somewhere in the interface. Mo features, mo problems.
Improvements
- separate controls over each class of event (PMT finishes, awards, reminders, etc). The real challenge is the complexity of the interface. It might be simpler to contextualize this control, but you would still need a central place to view all of them.
Tutorial
Sketch: not sketched
Provide basic tutorial Project which walks the user through
creating their first project.
Concerns
- one-off creation is costly and not necessary in this case. In-context tutorial will provide the necessary information but will not require changes to the engine. Further, doing the tutorial while creating the first project will encourage use of the system rather than completing a specialized tutorial that gives knowledge but no useable results.
Improvements
- timed help messages to direct attention to remaining goals
- animations to improve clarity
Feedback
Sketch: not sketched
Provide mechanism for users to give feedback on the whole
interface. It will likely be a link somewhere in the interface
though it's not clear where.
Concerns
- this presumes some "in the wild" use which will not happen until later versions
Improvements
- contextual feedback would be great, but it would require designing a feedback icon (like the ?) so it could be added easily to areas that are already visually and informationally complex
Ethics
Sketch: not sketched
Provide basic ethics brief before users complete their signup and
email them a copy.
Concerns
- implementation team has not yet received the text of this, but it should easily editable anyway (for subsequent projects). Either a simple text file or something in the database
Improvements
- include a brief demographics survey
- it would be nice to give them a debrief, but the timing of that is tricky. Could possibly do it based on time using the system (1 hour typing or something).
Done popup
Sketch: not sketched
Provide an informational popup with optional "Brag" box
for competitors when users click "Done" on a PMT.
Concerns
- can't provide both bragging and feedback boxes. We'll be lucky if they write anything in there let alone two separate things with two separate tones (one flippant, one serious)
Improvements
- can be used to notify the user about new awards they've just won
Scenarios
Mario versus Bowser
Persona 1: Mario has held many jobs (plumber, Doctor,
carpenter, etc.), lived in many places (New York, Mushroom Kingdom,
Space, etc.), and most importantly loves his girlfriend, Princes
Peach. He rarely uses the Internet, but often uses word processors.
He heard about The Writing Game (TWG) because U of A projects are
highly publicized in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Persona 2: Bowser, King of the Koopas, is a
megalomaniacal leader, a career criminal and the head of the first
crime family of the Mushroom Kingdom. Typing is difficult with
claws, but Bowser has persevered and become fairly adept with
computers and on the internet. Bowser has always loved Peach, but
she has always preferred Mario. He heard about TWG because he
regularly hacks into Mario's computer.
Scenario: Competing to write a love letter to Peach
- (Mario)
Mario thinks TWG will help him to write a love letter to Peach to finally convince her to marry him. He has been struggling with it for a while and hopes that TWG will help to motivate him. Mario signs up and selects the tutorial project to learn how the system works
- (Mario)
Mario enters his new project title (My Love Letter), fills in the project description, puts in an end date of two weeks from today, and guesses that it will take 2 pages and 2 days to express his love. - (Mario)
The tutorial encourages him to break his project into milestones, so Mario creates some milestones:- Our history
- Our future
- My heartfelt plea
- Final editing
- (Mario)
Since he is excited at his progress (the progress bar has moved a little way toward finishing), Mario starts writing the "Our history" milestone and finishes quickly. - (Bowser)
Bowser has screenhacked Mario and watches him complete his first steps in TWG and decides to mess with Mario by competing with him in letter writing. He copies all of the steps Mario has done (to save time) and adds Mario as a competitor. - (Mario)
Mario receives an email notification and a message at the top of the TWG window that indicates Bowser wants to compete with Mario. Mario accepts his challenge! He then quickly finishes his Our history milestone and clicks the Done button. His progress bar jumps forward and he feels happy. - (Bowser)
Bowser receives an email notification and a message at the top of the TWG window that indicates Mario has accepted his challenge. While Bowser is still cackling with glee, he gets another email and screen message to indicate that Mario has finished his first milestone in 45 minutes! Bowser gets right to work and finishes his Our History and Our Future milestones. When he clicks "Done" on Our Future, he types "She is my future, not YOURS!!" into the "Notes for competitors" box. - (Mario)
While Mario is working feverishly, he gets an email notification and a screen message for all of Bowser's work. He realizes that so many notifications are annoying, so he goes to his notification screen (link in the email and in the screen message) and indicates that he only wants daily notifications. - (Mario)
Mario writes his Heartfelt plea and clicks the Done button. He navigates to the project level and sees that his progress bar is nearly full! He hits the export button which lets him save his whole project as a plain text file. After printing his new file, he goes to bed to do his final edits. - (Bowser)
Bowser gets a mail/screen notification that Mario has finished his Heartfelt plea and only has 1 milestone left. Not wanting to be beaten, Bowser quickly clicks the Done button on his remaining milestones and clicks Done on his project (including a competitor brag to Mario). His progress bar is full and he gets awards for finishing a project in 24 hours and for winning his first competition. - (Bowser)
Bowser clicks the feedback link, fills in the text area with "Thanks for the awards but you guys are suckers" and goes to bed. - (Mario)
Mario opens his email and sees in his daily notification email that Bowser has finished all his milestones, has completed his project, and has won their TWG competition. Saddened, Mario takes some time to think about his feelings. - (Mario)
After a few days, Mario gets tired of the daily emails from TWG reminding him that his work on the Love letter is overdue. He pours all of his recent emotion into a rewrite of his Heartfelt plea. He finishes editing his letter in the TWG interface, exports, then prints the final copy. He clicks Done on his Milestones and his Project then he leaves to mail his letter. - (Bowser)
Because Bowser cheated and did not use the TWG system properly, he does not get reminders and he never finishes his letter to Peach. Consequently, he begins planning yet another kidnapping attempt.
Princess Peach uses PEARL
The PEARL Guidelines module has been moved to version 2.
In Game Rewards
Overview
This section outlines the in-game rewards for GWRIT. Please tag all suggestions for in-game rewards with a proposed point value and your name. This way discussion/questions are directed to the right person. For example: Killing the Dragon - 500 points (Matt).
- Minor goals should be worth one digit points, eg. daily login is worth 5 points per day.
- Major goals should be worth two digit points, eg. writing 500 words is worth 50 points.
- Epic goals should be worth three digit points, eg. writing for 20 hours is worth 500 points.
- EXTREME!!1 goals should be worth five digit points, eg. average 750 words per day for 50 days is worth 50,000 points.
Minor Goals
- Daily Login - 5 points (Matt)
- Online for 1 hour in a single session - 5 points (Matt)
- Online for 5 hours total - 5 points (Matt)
- Write word over 15 characters - 5 points (Matt)
- Create your first task - 5 points (Matt)
- Complete a milestone - 1 point (Matt)
- Complete a task - 1 point (Matt)
Major Goals
- Write 750 words in one session - 75 points(Matt)
- Write 500 words in one session- 50 points (Matt)
- Online for 50 hours total - 50 points (Matt)
- Online for 20 hours total - 20 points (Matt)
- Complete 10 tasks - 20 points (Matt)
Epic Goals
- Active time for 20 hours - 500 points (Matt)
- Write 2,000 words in one session - 200 points (Matt)
- Write 1,500 words in one session - 150 points (Matt)
- Write 1,000 words in one session - 100 points (Matt)
EXTREME!!1 Goals
- Write 750 words per day for 50 days - 50,000 points (Matt)
- Write 750 words per day for 30 days - 30,000 points (Matt)
- Write 750 words per day for 10 days - 10,000 points (Matt)
- Write 10,000 words total - 1,000 points (Matt)
Quests
What is a Quest?
A quest is a pre-determined writing task defined by the game developers. Quests are specific writing goals that encourage users to focus their writing process for enticing rewards. Quests also function as tutorials to showcase the functionality of GWRIT.
Quest Outlines
Create 10 Tasks
User creates 10 tasks in their new document, encouraging users to break up their work.
Notification
Reminders
Opt-in notification to get emails when end dates for project/milestone/task (PMT) are approaching
Log
Opt-in notification to get emails describing your recent work
Competition
If you are competing, this will automatically be enabled, but you can uncheck the box if you no longer want to get competition notification.
Sample page
This represents a basic notification interface. Obviously something like Google Calendar's arbitrary repeat interface would be better, but it would also be a lot more work/time/money/etc.
Notification types (x indicates a checkbox): x Emailx Screen message
Notificationsx Select all/none x Include all competitors/none
x Instant (this will result in lots of traffic)
- x receive Joe's notifications
- x receive Jane's notifications
x Daily
- x receive Joe's notifications
- x receive Jane's notifications
x Weekly
- x receive Joe's notifications
- x receive Jane's notifications
x Monthly
- x receive Joe's notifications
- x receive Jane's notifications
Notes
Active Time Online versus Total Time Online
Active time is defined as 15 or more keystrokes per minute. Inactive time is defined as 14 or less keystrokes per minute. Active minutes are more valuable than inactive minutes for scoring.
Total Time Online
The combination of active minutes and inactive minutes.
Why distinguish between Active Time Online and Total Time Online
This discourages players from gaming the system and encourages active participation.
Files
Note: Would separate sketches, per feature (as much as is possible), be better than one big file?
Done popup sketch
Interface will check if you are competing then show you this pop-up if you are competing with someoneFile:GWRIT-MS3-AddedDonePop-1-Aug-21-2011.graffle.pdf
Notification sketch
Shows the notification screenFile:GWRIT-MS3-AddedNotif-Aug-07-2011.graffle.pdf
New layered sketch
Includes several new screens (profile and competition) and integrates all new feedback (done button, help icon, help hover, etc.)File:GWRIT-MS3-Sketch-5.pdf
Old sketch for reference
Includes legacy screens and a lot of important discussion.File:GWRIT-MS3-3-Aug-02-2011.graffle.pdf
fAR-Play
Documents related to the development of the fAR-Play platform.
Game Ideas
A place for ideas about types of games.
PLAYPR
A place for games related to PLAYPR.