Ball State University Achievements App Usability and Game Design Study

8/12/2019 Ball State University Achievements App Usability and Game Design Study

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BSU Achievements App Usability and Game Design Study

By: Scott Reinke

Emerging Technologies & Media Department

Ball State University

January 6

th

, 2014


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BSU Achievements App

Usability & Game Design Study

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Table of Contents

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Executive Summary

The purpose of this study was to create a functioning prototype of an interactive, achievement-based,

mobile application to give to a group of 25 Ball State University students, and get feedback from themon how the application could be improved both in terms of usability and game design. Participants were

given access to the application on their personal iOS devices, or were loaned an iOS device for thestudy. In this application, participants were instructed to complete achievements that were listed in the

application with the understanding that they would be rewarded for their participation. Toward the endof the semester, the students participated in a focus group to discuss their findings and observations

while using the application.

The following is a summary of the findings from the focus groups:

Usability:! Categories & Achievements should go on the front page! Profile summary should go on a secondary page! Completed achievements page needed! Certain areas need helper text or icons to explain their function! An introduction tutorial/video would be beneficial to new users! Push notifications wanted! More colors/pictures to discern categories and achievements

Game Design

! Categories of achievements/More achievements/Different achievements! Leaderboards (weekly, monthly, semester, career, department specific, etc.)! Bonus points for doing achievements with friends! Major/Department specific categories! Improved rewards! Social media interactions! Time based achievements

It is recommended that many, if not all, of these recommendations be created and implemented intothe app before full release of the game to the Ball State University student population. Creating a large

amount of good, fun achievements should be first priority as they form the heart of the game.Categorization and sorting of achievements will greatly aid the usability of the application.

Leaderboards, progression goals, and daily achievements will help create habitual usage of theapplication and completion of achievements in a competitive atmosphere. Finally, well-balanced

material and non-material rewards will keep students interested and create a lot of free word of mouth

advertisement for the game.


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Introduction & Methodology

The purpose of this study was to create a functioning prototype of an interactive, achievement-based,mobile application to give to a group of Ball State University students, and get feedback from them on

how the application could be improved both in terms of usability and game design. Participants were notchosen at random and fit certain desired criteria that will be explained below. Participants were given

access to the application on their personal iOS devices, or were loaned an iOS device for the study. Inthis application, participants were instructed to complete achievements that were listed in the

application with the understanding that they would be rewarded for their participation. Toward the endof the semester, the students participated in a focus group to discuss their findings and observations

while using the application. Participants that could not attend focus groups were allowed to fill out aquestionnaire with the same questions that other participants answered during the in person focus group.

Participants & Demographics

There were 25 total Ball State University students selected as participants for this study. 15 students

were selected from a previous focus group conducted by Ball State University, and 10 students wereselected from the Digital Corps. The first 15 students were all Pell Grant recipients, and the 10 Digital

Corps students were selected to help round out demographic ratios such as gender and class year.

Of the selected participants: 15 were female and 10 were male. There were 4 freshmen, 9sophomores, 4 juniors, and 8 seniors. Ethnicity was dominantly Caucasian (20 students) with 2 African

American, 2 Hispanic, and 1 Asian student. Ages ranged from 18 to 32, however; all but two studentsfall between the ages of 18 and 21.


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Focus Group Sessions

Each participant was invited to participate in one focus group two weeks prior to the end of FallSemester 13. Three focus group sessions were held in total to accommodate the differing availabilitiesof the student participants. Splitting the participants into smaller groups was also intended to encourage

participation. Each focus group was lead by Scott Reinke, observed by Gloria Pavlik, and 45 minutes induration.

There were three distinct sections in the focus groups: A drawing exercise, discussion of usability,

and discussion of game design.

The drawing exercise consisted of Scott Reinke asking the students of the focus group to draw themain interface of the program from memory using pens, pencils, and crayons on an iPhone 5 template

printed on paper. This exercise had two purposes in the study. Primarily, this exercise would reveal whataspects of the interface students easily remembered and what parts were frequently overlooked or

forgotten by the students. A secondary, but equally beneficial aspect of this exercise was to lighten themood of the focus group and encourage creativity among the participants.

The two discussion sections followed the drawing exercise and consisted of Scott Reinke leading the

group with specific questions and follow up questions concerning the usability and game design of theapplication. Some examples of the questions used are as follows (the entire question script can be found

in the Appendix).

Usability questions:

! What do you like/not like about the design of the application?!How would you make the interface more intuitive for new users?!If you could add, take away, or change any part of the application from a design perspective,

what would it be and why?

Game Design questions:

! What are some achievements that you think would be fun to see in the application?! What rewards would be enticing to you as a player?! What would drive you to regularly interact with this application?!How might the BSU achievements application influence how you interact with theUniversity?

All focus groups were recorded via Scott Reinkes audio recorder on his iPhone and Samuel Noble

and Gloria Pavlik took down notes for all focus groups.


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Survey

Participants that were unable to participate in the focus groups due to scheduling complications were

asked to answer the question script used for the focus group on their own time and email the responsesback to Scott Reinke. Participants who participated in the focus groups were not asked to complete this

task.


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Findings

As the focus groups were held in a very open format, the findings for both usability and game design

will be paraphrased and briefly expanded upon. Interestingly, there was little to no conflict betweenideas raised between the groups. All three groups came to very similar conclusions across the board for

both usability and game design. It should be noted that this section only seeks to reveal the findings ofthe focus group, but not discuss implementation. Implementation will be addressed in the next major

section of this report: Recommendation for Future Development.

Usability

Drawing Exercise

The drawing exercise revealed several pieces of valuable information on the effectiveness of the

main interface. Participants drawings from the drawing exercise can be found in the Appendix. The mosteffective aspect of the design was by far the use of colored shapes in the bottom off the page. All

participants drew shapes of some kind at the bottom of the page, and one participant even drew theshapes in the correct order. Most of the participants had the same or similar shapes to what was in the

actual application. The second most remembered feature was the experience bar, and finally, the thirdmost remembered feature was the navigation button (three small lines) in the top right corner.

Features such as the users name, credits earned, rank, specific numbers, and section titles were only

included sparingly on most drawings and often out of place.

It is very clear that shapes and color use was very effective in the design of the interface, however;

the use of copy was not.

Discussion

Major Areas of Interest

These are key areas of interest that all groups unanimously agreed were good ideas and should beimplemented into the application. These areas were not only mentioned, but also discussed and defended

heavily by participants.

! Categories should go on the front page! More color/pictures to discern categories achievementsOne area of confusion for many participants was trying to figure out what the symbols on the main

interface were and what they did. Participants explained that they first tried to tap the symbols becausethey thought they were buttons. This lead the participants to suggest that the achievements themselvesbe on the main interface page instead of under another category for easier access. The participants also


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expressed that it would be beneficial to color code or create symbols for achievements that were in thesame category or that could be completed in a similar fashion.

! Profile summary on a secondary page! Completed achievements page needed

These two points are different, but closely related in terms of reorganization of information. Theparticipants expressed that they would like to be able to see a list or some sort of graphical

acknowledgment that an achievement has been completed. They said that this could be done in the formof a different category for completed achievements or simply checking off or some other graphical cue

on the achievement itself. Along with a possible completed achievements secondary page, theparticipants also said that a profile summary would be better suited in a secondary page instead of on the

main page.

! Helper text or icons to explain buttons or areas! An introduction tutorial/video would be beneficial to new users

The participants all thought it would be very beneficial to new users to have a sort of introduction

tutorial video or walkthrough the first time the app is opened. They explained that this would be good toexplain exactly what the app is, what it does, and how the user can interact with it. Along those same

lines, the participants also suggested for continued support to offer a help section or help buttons incertain critical areas such as the profile summary or achievements sections.

! Push NotificationsThis is fairly self explanatory and anticipated, but everyone in the focus groups agreed that push

notifications would be a good addition to the application for completed achievements or when the user is

in close proximity to an achievement that could be done. In reality, this was always an intended feature,but just was not implemented in the short development cycle for this round of testing.

Minor Areas of Interest

These areas of interest were mentioned by most focus groups, but not necessarily with as much

interest as the major areas of interest. Most of these are smaller observations and more detail oriented inthe functionality of the application. As that is the case, they are fairly self-explanatory to just be listed

without further discussion.

! Categorization of achievements! Sorting methods for achievements! More colors in the interface! Email and Phone numbers should be tappable throughout the application


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Game Design

Discussion

Major Areas of Interest

These are areas of interest in the game design of the achievements app that the participantsabsolutely want to see in the app in the future. All of the groups agreed that these would drive more

students to use the app and enjoy using the app in the process. It should also be noted that theparticipants were not only excited about the about the rewards to be had, but also the achievements to be

completed in the application. Most participants spoke of how the application could improve bothstudents experiences as well as benefit the University.

! Categories of achievements! More achievements! Different achievements

The core idea here that was expressed was that the participants want more and varied achievementsthroughout the application and easy methods of sorting and categorizing those achievements. This isobviously something that is intended for future development, but none-the-less good to hear from the

participants. The following are some ideas the students developed for broad categories of achievements:Exploration, Health, Greek Life, Future Planning, Department/Major Specific, Daily Achievements

(special achievements that could only be done or done for bonus points on a given day), Time &Location Based (accumulating points per hour of library time, for instance), Sporting Events, Cultural

Events, and Academic Progression (passing the writing comp, becoming a senior, finishing core classes,etc.).

! Leader boardsMany participants were very excited about the idea of creating leader boards to encourage

competition between students. They even suggested that there could be subsets of leader boards such asa Telecommunications leader board specifically for Telecommunications students or a fraternity or

sorority specific leader board for a Greek organization, and so on. Leader boards could be reset atcertain points throughout the year or semester to encourage fresh starts and new competition weekly or

monthly.

The participants also suggested that this could be a good place to create very special rewards forstudents that get the most achievements in the ladder. These rewards could be less material and more

experience based such as leading the football team onto the field for homecoming, a personal lunch with

the president of the University or chair of their department, or even a trip up inside the bell tower. It wasnoted that these types of achievements could be very enticing and greatly appreciated by students whilecreating minimal cost to the University.

! Bonus points for doing achievements with friendsMany participants suggested that creating a way to invite friends to do achievements with them

would be very fun and possibly a way to make new friends. The participants went further to say that it


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would be nice to incentivize this behavior in some way by rewarding bonus points for doingachievements together or in groups.

This is a particularly useful finding as the previous focus group conducted for the BMI project had a

very heavy emphasis on students claiming that a peer who was a good influence on them was a huge

driving factor in their success in college. This implementation would directly address that notion andencourage peer interaction with goals centered on values of the University.

! RewardsNeedless to say, all of the students agreed that rewards would incentivize students to use the

application and complete achievements, however; most students were adamant on leveraging the

Universitys already established products and services. Many participants suggested using Ball Statebranded products such as clothing, lanyards, glass wear, and other goods as purchasable awards as well

as discounts on tuition or at the Ball State Book Store. Other more unique rewards suggested were freeparking passes and oops vouchers, credit on meal cards, and access to early class registration. Students

also unanimously agreed that gift cards of almost any sort would always be greatly appreciated.

Minor Areas of Interest

As with the previous Minor Areas of Interest section, this section is composed of ideas that were

expressed, but not discussed with as much vigor as other ideas. Also like the previous section, they areself-explanatory and do not warrant much discussion.

! Achievements for Muncie as well as on campus! Use of achievements to teach students about Ball State resources! Tiered achievements (achievements that must be completed in order)! Social media interaction (posting achievements to social media or achievements for doing so)! Breaking down larger achievements into smaller progressions of achievements


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Recommendations for Future

Development

This section will serve as a greatly expanded and more practical version of a traditional discussion

or conclusions section of a study. The recommendations discussed in the following section are aculmination of the findings of this study, the knowledge of game design theory of the author (Scott

Reinke), and the technical knowledge of the Emerging Technologies & Media Department.

The goal of this section is to lay groundwork for continued development of the BSU AchievementsApp and insure the future prosperity of the product as a whole. Each section will describe ultimate,

finished goals, not necessarily what is possible within the next round of testing. When and how to get tothese ultimate goals will be described in the final portion of this section: Timeline & Scope of

Development.


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Interface Design Changes for Usability

Main Page

The main page of the interfacethe page a user would see normally upon opening the app andhaving logged-inshould give the user something to do immediately and contain quick access for the

user to browse achievements. Achievements should be organized in groups according to their specificcategory, and function in a parent-child collapsible drop-down manner for tiered achievements.

Leader Board

A secondary page should be added to include a leader board. This should include the option to look

at separate leaderboards that the user is a member of if any exist and the overall leaderboard for thegiven time frame. The user should be able to automatically jump to their position on the leader board,

sort by name and score, and search for other users by name to view their score.

Icons for Achievements and Categories

Achievements should all be a part of a parent category of some kind and be of a specific sub-type ofachievement. Sub-types of achievements will be determined by the actual actions the user needs to take

to complete the achievement. Some sub-types could be location based achievements where the user onlyneeds to be in a geographic location and tap a button to check-in, or a time and location based

achievement where a user would need to be in a certain place at a certain time or for a duration of time.Each achievements icon should show in its design what sub-type the achievement is. Likewise, each

category should have its own design to fit and convey the category itself. For instance: All achievementsin a health based category could have a heart as their core emblem to denote category, and then have

differing boarders around that emblem to denote which sub-type of achievement it is specifically. Thiswill allow users to very quickly browse achievements and glean information on the fly.

Profile & Completed Achievements

The profile page should be a secondary page that functions as a summary of progress throughdifferent categories as well as a trophy room of sorts to view completed achievements.

The profile should show the user name, amount of credits acquired, overall experience gained, andcompletion bars for all categories that the user has completed at least one achievement.

The completed achievements section should display the last three achievements completed indescending order from the most recent achievement, but allow to tap to populate more and scroll down.

Completed achievements should contain the name of the achievement, the description of theachievement, the date and time it was completed, and who the user completed it with if it was completedwith a peer.


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Tutorial & Help Section

A short series of tutorial achievements should be programmed into the application as a category with

guiding arrows to both explain what the application is and direct the user on how to use all of itsfeatures. The user would be directed with arrows to open the Getting Started category, and theninstructed with an arrow to tap the Learn about BSU Achievements! achievement. A short video

would then play describing what the app is and what it does. This video could be skipped or could beplayed in silent with closed captions if needed. After the video plays or is skipped, the user would be

awarded their first achievement and would then be encouraged to do the next achievement in theGetting Started category until all achievements are completed. The user would then have all other

available categories revealed and be set free to explore all achievements.

A help section would then be included in as a secondary page in the top right navigation pull-out tabthat would basically include all of the Getting Started material and other FAQs accumulated over

time.


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Achievement Celebration Animation

Each category of achievement should have a simple pop-up animation that occurs when a user

completes an achievement in that category. This does not need to be anything too obnoxious, but shouldclearly indicate that something good has happened and the achievement has been accomplished. That

being said, bigger achievements should warrant more fanfare. Completing a single achievement wouldbe the most modest, completing a sub category would be a much more celebrated, and completing and

entire category should be hugely celebrated.

Sound Effects

Sound should be used for two purposes in this application: User feedback and affirmation of desired

behavior. For user feedback, small ticking or popping sounds could be used when selecting anachievement, opening a category, or switching to a different screen. For affirmation of desired behavior,

each achievement animation should also have a small jingle, sound bite of a crowd cheering, or

something else that is fitting for the specific achievement category. This may sound silly, but this will goa long way toward psychological satisfaction of the user when completing achievements and interactingwith the application.


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Game Design Changes

Achievements

First and foremost, there should be an extremely large pool of achievements. Two of the core tenetsof game design are that a game needs to be voluntary and a player needs to be able to make impactful

choices in the game. A large base of achievements accomplishes both of these aspects of game design byoffering many different options to interest the player and also making it extremely difficult for the player

to finish all of the achievements. This also leads to a third important aspect of game design that isstrategy. Many different achievements at varying levels of involvement and reward will encourage

players to think and strategize for the most efficient method of completing tasks and accumulatingpoints. If it does not seem like there are ways to improve strategically, then players will lose interest

quickly and see these achievements as chores. At its core, this is a game of efficiently balancing andorganizing daily tasks to maximize productivity.

These achievements should not be large tasks in and of themselves. There could be multipleachievements that culminate in completing a larger task, but achievements should be kept bite size tokeep things simple and make sure players do not become confused or discouraged. For instance: Instead

of an achievement to Sign up for classes, there could be three achievements to lead through theprocess such as Make an appointment with your counselor, Meet with your counselor, and Register

for classes.

For the next round of testing, there should be a large amount of available achievements right off thebat. Four categories should be fairly easy to accomplish with enough time to prepare: Exploration,

Health, Academic, and Culture. Exploration would be a category that is completely filled withachievements that just ask the player to go somewhere and check-in. These would be notable landmarks

and buildings both on campus and in the Muncie area. See the Appendix for an example of anexploration category list of achievements. The Health category could have achievements that could be

completed once per day as well as normal achievements that are gone after completion. This wouldallow for rewarding regular visits to the gym or joining health-based groups. The Academic category

would be very similar to the Health category except obviously focusing around academic activities.Instead of having achievements for visiting the gym, a player could be rewarded for visiting the library

and then compound more points the longer they stay. The Culture category would basically emphasizeall of the events and special aspects of Ball State Campus. Most of the achievements in this category

would be one-off achievements for attending a concert, film, theater performance, speaker, or any otherevent held on campus, but others could be recurring such as visiting one of the Chefs or joining a non-

athletic club.

In addition to just being able to browse for achievements to complete, there should also be Daily

achievements that randomly pop up for each given category per day. These daily achievements orDailies, as they are often called in game design, would be worth double or triple points for that day only.

This encourages repetition and forms habitual usage and engagement of the player. This can be taken astep further by adding additional multipliers to points for concurrent completion of Dailies, so that

completing a daily quest for a week straight grants even more bonus points. As with everything, dailyachievements should offer the player a choice. In this instance, there could be four achievements


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available as dailies, but the player would only be allowed to complete one. The player would then haveto make the decision to complete the achievement that awards the most points, is the least difficult, takes

the least time, or whatever other factors affect their day. One important note on daily achievements:Whichever departments or facilities that are being highlighted with a daily achievements should be

notified in advance. A daily achievement to visit one of the Chefs, for example, could turn out very

poorly with disappointed players if the Chef runs out of food not being prepared for the surge ofbusiness. Likewise an understaffed counseling facility, etc.

Leaderboard & Competition

As expressed by the focus group participants and outlined a bit in the usability section, there should

be a leaderboard implemented into the application. The leaderboard should show the top 1020 playersbased on total experience points gained during different periods of time and player groups. There should

be an overall leaderboard with the entire user base as well as smaller groups implemented further downthe line to accommodate colleges, Greek communities, and other entities that would like to create a

leaderboard. For certain types of students, this will be a huge driving factor in playing the game. Veryspecial rewards should be tied to winning or being in the top level of players in the leaderboard.

Rewards & Currency

In on-going, habit-forming games such as BSU Achievements, it is good to implement two forms of

currency and reward. There should be an essential and vanity version of both. The essentialcurrency should be absolutely necessary to advance in the game and offer rewards that cannot be

obtained any other way. Vanity currency allows the player to purchase items that may not have an effecton the game, but are entertaining for the player.

In BSU Achievements, the two forms of currency should be Experience and Credits. Experience

would be the essential currency and Credits would be the vanity currency. Credits can be a currency thatis accumulated and then later spent, while Experience builds the player up to certain levels gaining

perks, but is never spent. Credits could buy products or gift cards, while Experience would grant on-going discounts or special abilities on campus. Achievements could offer varying amounts of credits or

experience depending on what they ask the player to do or an associated cost involved with the task(Concert, Chef, etc).

Credit rewards are pretty straightforward: Gift cards, BSU gear, school supplies, etc. Experience

rewards, however, are where the game could get very interesting and really entice students to participate.The highest level of experience, which would two or three years to reach, could grant 15% off tuition at

Ball State University. Some lower level Experience rewards could be priority registration, free red zoneparking passes, 30% off at the BSU Bookstore, and so on. Furthermore, there could be an overall

Experience bar, but also Experience within categories. So, gaining Experience in the Health categorycould allow the student priority reservation of recreational fields while Experience in the Cultural

category could give the student priority seating at an event of their choice. Going back again to theconcept of choice, this encourages students to make the decision of diving deep into one category to get

a single huge reward or becoming a jack of all trades to reap multiple benefits.


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Finally, rewards for Leaderboard competition should be entirely unique and be newsworthy. Theleaderboard competitions will be the best way to get word of mouth traveling like wildfire about the app

and get students excited to participate. For the overall leaderboards, make the grand prize something thatwould be very impactful to the student such as waived tuition for the following semester or year, a car, a

trip to the U.S. city of their choice, and so on. For smaller competitions, create smaller unique awards

for the top performers such as dinner with the President, box seats at a BSU football game, or backstagepasses for a concert.

Game Management

This section is a general recommendation of how to handle an on-going management of this game.

As there will be thousands of players at any given time, there will be a constant need to add content,support users, and balance the economy. For those reasons, it is recommended to have three core

management positions for the game: Lead Game Designer, Economist, and a Ball State UniversityBoard Member. The Game Designers duty would be to very simply to make the game fun. They would

be in charge of making sure that the achievements, rewards, and progression encourage gameplay andstrategy. The Game Designer would be considered the person who has the last word on any decision

about BSU Achievements. The Economist would be an advisor to the Game Designer and wouldbalance the currency and rewards systems in the game. The BSU Board Member would also serve as an

advisor to the Game Designer by ensuring that achievements and rewards are in line with the values andgoals of the University. These three positions would serve as a check and balance system to make sure

the game remains fun, beneficial to the student, and financially under control.

The general process would be for departments to send achievements to the Game Designer whowould then rewrite the achievements if needed to fit gameplay and assign currency values. The

Economist would then check those currency values and balance if needed, and finally the BoardMember would read through the achievements and approve or disapprove of the concept. The

achievements would then go back to the Game Designer and be implemented or changed accordingly.


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Brittany Means Sarah Horn Trevor Nantais Jenny Nguyen David Jewell

Jamie Hahn Marie Prevost Taylor Jessup Dan Edwards Kenneth Winner

Brice Brenneman Mitch Hannon Luke Jones Alexandria Smart Tyler Varnau

Heather Ashby Alea Bowling Sarah Swingley Leonardo Vila Rodriguez Christy Carpenter

Joi Fortson Caroline Everidge Paige Schmitt Rachel Thomas Geoff Kimball

Student Participants


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BSU Achievements App Focus Group AgendaIntroductions [5 minutes] Go around the room and make simple introductions.

Ill ask each person for their name, class, major, and what super power theyd

like to have.

Hands on Exercise [5 minutes] Each student will be given a piece of paper witha blank iPhone mock-up printed on it. Students will be asked to draw theinterface from memory.

Interface Discussion [15 minutes] What parts of the interface were easy for you to remember? What parts of the interface were more difficult to remember? Does the interface feel intuitive for you? How would you make the interface more intuitive for new users? If you could add, take away, or change any part of the application, what would

it be and why? What are your overall thoughts on the design and usability of the application?

Summary of Future Features [5 minutes] I (Scott Reinke) will briefly discusssome of the future features that would be a part of the application to set the

frame for the following discussion.

Concept Discussion [15 minutes]

What are achievements that you think would be fun to see in the application? What rewards would be enticing to you as a player? What would drive you to regularly interact with this application? How do you feel that social media interactions would affect this application? How might the BSU achievements application influence how you interact with

the University? If you could add, take away, or change any concept of the BSU

Achievements App, what would it be and why? What are your overall thoughts on the BSU Achievements App?


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Example of Exploration Category

Exploration (Category)

Discover all that Ball State University and the city of Muncie have to offer! Simplygo to the location described and tap the achievement to complete.

!Seeing the Sights (Sub-Category)" The Naked Lady (Forest Idyll)" Frog Baby" Benny (Beneficence)" The Flyswatter" The Arts Terrace" The Cow Path" Christy Woods" The Duck Pond" The Scramble Light" University Green"

Shafer Tower" The Quad" Minnetrista Globe Statue" Chief Muncie (Appeal to the Great Spirit)" Dave Letterman Alley" The Passing of the Buffalo" Vietnam Veteran Valor Monument" Cardinal Greenway

! Art Areas" Pruis Hall" Art Museum"

WIPB Studio" College of Architecture and Planning" Art and Journalism Building" Emens Auditorium" University Theater" Sursa Hall" Music Instruction Building

! Athletics Areas" Worthen Arena" Student Recreation & Wellness Center" Lewellen Pool" Cardinal Creek Tennis Center" South Campus Recreation Field" Ball Gymnasium" Lucina Recreational Tennis Courts" Varsity Baseball Complex" Varsity Softball Complex" Scheumann Stadium

Documents

Ball State University Achievements App Usability and Game Design Study