04 Design for Development: Animalia
A project by Amore Fourie, Nokubonga Ndlovu, Uyanda Sibiya
Individual contribution
Project Brief
A digital, game-based intervention was to be designed for this project that shows the powerful act of playing as a means to encourage meaningful connection. Students were divided into groups of 3 with a specific prompt assigned to each group. This digital intervention was designed for children between the ages of 6 and 8 and was aimed at encouraging connection among family, friends and/or the community.
Students were required to conduct research on their target audience and make use of prototyping to find out the likes and dislikes of the children in order to make accurate decisions for their digital intervention. This project aimed at creating positive change in a local context specifically with regard to civic responsibility and children’s development through play and experiential learning.
Project Deliverables
1. Process documentation
2. Digital intervention
3. Presentation
Design Strategy
The prompt we were given was science. Science is a rather tricky subject for most kids in school and so we wanted to make this more fun and memorable for the children. Because science is such a broad topic we decided to narrow it down and have our game focus on one aspect of science. That is animal science which falls under natural science. Our app’s main focus is to educate children about different animals in different environments. This allows us to delve into relationships that are found in nature, the types of animals, the animal’s specific features, hunting, survival tactics and many other things that are associated with animals. The children would go on a specific adventure, based on the environment/biome they have chosen. Along their journey, they would encounter animal characters that help them achieve their goal. In between the narrative, there will be educational activities where they learn facts about the different animals. Once the player has completed an activity they will receive collectable items that they can then add to their character.
The main focus of the game is to get children, specifically 8-year-olds, to learn about animal science in a fun and memorable way. To bring in the important connection element of the brief, we decided to include the parents or family in a way that allows them to participate in the activities with the children. How we chose to approach this by creating a narrative-based game.
In this narrative-based game, the player plays as a scientist character that they can customise. To ensure that the game has relevance and makes sense for the South African context, the character can choose from 5 different environments (biomes) found here. Namely, the savanna grasslands, coastal environments, deserts, mountain environments and forests. Animalia promotes connection and encourages play within families by being an interactive and educational game. It also promotes the idea of children being reunited with their immediate environment through play.
My main role was to research and develop concepts with my group members. Each of us took on certain tasks, where I was tasked with wireframing and putting the UI of the app together as well as creating some of the style guide components.
To see our process work in more detail, click here.
To see our style guide in more detail, click here.
To see the full Animalia app in Figma, click here.
Initial research
Our research began by breaking down science into its core sections such as biology, chemistry, physics, natural sciences etc. We wanted to push ourselves and tried to stay away from the typical route of creating a science game where children only make experiments. After this had been established, our specific topic of animal science was chosen as the final aspect of science to base our game around for 8-year-olds.
We decided to create a narrative-based game where children would play as a character and go on many adventures and while they engage with biblio-play by reading the game, there are challenges or activities in-between the narrative that are related to the specific animal they come across in their journey. In these activities, they learn about how to identify animals by sound, learn about features of animals and even the survival tactics of different animals. Animalia can be played with friends, and family, in a school classroom setting or even individually.
Once the child has completed their journey, they have the opportunity to create one of the animals they came across in their journey. The game prompts the children to collect materials around their homes to create a wonderful animal of their choice. This aspect of the game makes use of exploring the environment the child is in and also stimulates their creativity. Going out into their environment forces them to get in touch with their environments and helps them build their own relations and connections with objects in the world.
Findings
The first thing we did with the children to break the ice is to draw a few random animals. From this simple activity alone, we noticed how the children use very basic shapes to construct their animals. We had gotten a lesson on how to draw an owl, and this too was broken down into simple shapes that the children could understand.
After conducting our first round of user testing, we saw that the initial style we had planned to draw in was slightly complicated, and we went with a more simplistic use of shapes to create the characters in our story.
When we tested the match-a-fact game, we realised that the cards were to text-heavy and rather lengthy. We also noticed that the children matched the cards quicker that had simple keywords on them. For example, one of the children made an easy connection between water and a hippo. We then reduced the amount of text that we had on the cards to make playing the game easier for the children.
Spot the mood
Our UX/UI approach was inspired by games that look and feel like a story book, adopted and adapted for digital use. This includes the usage of characters and specific environments, that are fun colourful and memorable.
Name and logo exploration
Our footprint- Logo
The name Animalia comes from the Latin word meaning animals. The favicon has been abstracted to mimic an elephant and a bird. But it also resembles a bird on a horizon with the sun in the background. The slogan is a play on words of the common phrase “get your thinking hats on” to link back to the theme of science.
Our Purrr-ific palette
Our user Journey occurs in the Savanna and therefore we went for a triadic colour scheme where the base colour revolves around the warm colours of the Savanna with spots of blue and red to compliment.
Rawr-tastic type
Animalia's logotype, Maverlo, is a fun and quirky typeface paired with a more simplistic typeface, Mplus 1, for the app's body copy. The simplicity of the body copy compliments the logo as well as the textural characteristic of the app's interface.
Our spots
The fauna - Visual style
Narrative arc
Presenting Animalia - The app
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