Stepping in Design researcher's shoes

My experience as a Design Research Intern at Vihara Innovation network (Center for Knowledge Societies)

For an undergrad or a fresh pass out from university, internship may spell the difference between a paycheck and another day at the unemployment line. During my 5-month internship at Vihara Innovation network, I realized that it was another place where I was learning each day by doing real time projects. Not only the theoretical and practical knowledge related to the work, the team hierarchy, management and coordination is a big take away from my internship.

Vihara Innovation Network, a research and design firm, introduced me to the process of using User centric design in the field of social innovation. I got the opportunity to work on “Game of Choice, Not Chance (GOC)”. It aims at adolescent girls ages 15-19 in India—simulates outcomes of decisions and choices related to reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP).

Note: The visuals, narrative excerpts and testing results cannot be revealed at this point as the game has not been launched yet

Game design was indeed a new puzzle for me to solve. But soon I realized, just like a jigsaw puzzle, we needed to put together the pieces, keeping the mind the big picture it will create. The pieces were-

My Roles & Responsibilities

1. I was aware that serious games do exist but I never thought a serious will need this heavy research to incorporate learning goals. The following research was carried out by me-

• Competitor study- Creating case studies of existing alternate solution in reproductive health and family planning (RH/FP).

• Persona building- creating the persona of the Target Group based on user research

• Information mapping- Mapping the information aligning to the learning goals of the game

• Character design research- Visualizing Playing and non-playing characters of the game along with attachments that they are carrying. Creating the persona profiles of the characters in the game

• Production Assistance- Art direction of the environment and different locations in the game through research.

• Narration building- Building the story flow, narrative progression of the game, Incorporating the set of learning goals in the narrative.

2. Since User centered design, revolves strictly around users so it was necessary to assess and evaluate each step with the users. I participated in planning and conducting the following testings-

• Art work testing- Though each ach art work was made on the bases on the knowledge acquired through co-gameplay and immersive research, it was necessary to recheck with the focus group. The characters and environments were developed and shown/discussed with them and the results were taken through probing and observation.

• Narration testing- The progress in narrative, in terms of style and story/character progression was tested with the focus group on weekly basis. The narrative was tested by dramatic reading (carried out by me because I have background in theater)

• Usability testing- Since the game is made for mobile games, it was important to keep in mind the user experience through the interface. Preferred orientation, layouts, dominant hand while playing, game controls, pace of the game, familiarity with icons were tested through usability testing session. The session was conducted with a focus group consisting of 10 people and these people were observed while performing task based scenarios for using given application. They were interviewed and while taking observations Neilson’s heuristic evaluation Principles and First click user testing method was kept in mind.

My Learnings

I always wondered how can we keep or work on right track, without actually not investing time and other resources on something that is off track. At Vihara I learned that creating an Evaluation framework at an early stage of the project helps in not only assessing the impact of the solution, but also keep the design process systematic. The evaluation also solves the following-

• Enhances the decision making process

• It paves way for design principles

• While working with multiple partners and cross teams, evaluation helps in keeping everyone on same page with respect to the process

• It helps in ensuring that the designers make most important considerations in a systematic way and apply the most relevant methods in developing the solution

I also participated in Game narration building workshop and Blogging workshop which taught writing blog about your project. being in office environment and working with seniors of the field gives you a chance to observe and learn from them. some of such skills are-

• Project management- Managing and coordinating the project through quire, Google calendar . Collaborative platforms like- Figma, Miro

• Documentation- Maintaining the documents on google slides, spreadsheet, doc and Miro