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UI/UX Designer for an Anti Cyber Bullying Game

Company: University of Melbourne & Saxion University of Applied Sciences
In a six-month project starting in September 2020, I collaborated with a cross-disciplinary team to design a user interface for an educational game aimed at learning-disabled children to raise awareness about bullying and cyberbullying. With a significant portion of the target audience lacking basic literacy skills, a visual and pictorial approach was crucial.
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As the UI/UX designer, I oversaw the interaction, visual, and motion design and collaborated with a cross-functional team to align the product with project objectives. I conducted user research, created wireframes, prototypes, and implemented the final UI design, utilizing Adobe Creative Cloud, Unity, Google Products, and Microsoft Office.
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Leveraging these technologies, I prioritized user needs to develop visually stunning solutions. We employed the Scrum framework for an iterative approach to development, with bi-weekly reviews ensuring responsiveness to feedback. I'm proud to have contributed to this meaningful project and look forward to similar challenges in the future.

The Project

Problem Statement:

  1. The research aims to investigate the root causes of bullying behavior and to identify effective strategies to mitigate such behavior.
  2. The research seeks to explore the potential of a game-based approach to gather valuable insights into the impact of information and polarization on bullying while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR.
  3. The research aims to leverage these insights to develop a fun and engaging game that prioritizes gameplay as its key element.
  4. The research seeks to identify the most suitable platform and technologies to create a prototype of the game.
  5. The research aims to determine an appropriate art style that aligns with the theme of the anti-bullying game.
What is the impact of different types of online content, specifically global versus local misinformation and polarizing information, on the social norms that facilitate bullying and youth violence within communities and groups, and how can gamified interventions address this issue?

Research Goals:

Solution

Our team has developed an innovative solution, which involves a simulated social media platform that allows the user to act as an administrator. The objective of the user is to review reported posts and determine whether the content violates the platform's policies regarding bullying behavior.
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To address the potential challenges faced by our target audience, such as limited reading and concentration capabilities, we have incorporated emojis into the user interface for interacting with the artificial intelligence system. Moreover, text-to-speech functionality has been implemented to facilitate the audial delivery of any relevant on-screen information.
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In addition, a user-friendly artificial assistant, located at the bottom right corner of the platform, has been integrated into the product. This feature offers guidance to users who feel overwhelmed, and provides feedback on their performance via simple facial expressions.

Personas

Our team sought to gain a comprehensive understanding of our users' objectives, requirements, experiences, and habits. To achieve this, we undertook the creation of two distinct personas for each of our user segments, drawing on extensive user interviews and surveys. Throughout the course of the project, we continually revised and refined these personas to reflect the latest data.
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By leveraging these personas, we were able to obtain a broader perspective and assess our preliminary concepts from an outside viewpoint. This enabled us to make more informed decisions and ensure that our solutions aligned with the genuine needs and preferences of our user base.

Wireframes

 
Employing Adobe XD, I successfully transformed my initial sketches into low-fidelity wireframes. Thereafter, I refined the wireframes by supplementing them with relevant visual elements and copies provided by our talented concept artist. The wireframes attained a significant level of detail, enabling us to solicit feedback by presenting them to teachers at a school catering to children with disabilities.
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Based on the insightful feedback received, I incorporated several modifications to the wireframes, paving the way for the creation of high-fidelity prototypes. These prototypes underwent rigorous testing with the target audience, which provided valuable insights and allowed us to enhance the design further.
 

Survey

After developing the initial clickable prototype, we conducted a user survey to gather feedback from our target audience. The survey was distributed to teachers at the Mosaik Schule in Lingen, Germany, who were asked to test the prototype and provide us with their responses. Our objective was to collect a substantial number of survey responses to evaluate whether our preliminary design and research aligned with our users' expectations.
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The survey results provided valuable insights into the challenges our users faced while interacting with our prototype. These findings allowed us to refine our design, address the issues raised by our users, and improve the overall user experience of our product.

Usability-Test & Thinking Aloud

Upon completing several iterations and incorporating the feedback from our user survey, we developed a high-fidelity prototype for our game. To ensure that our product aligned with the expectations of our target audience, we conducted a comprehensive usability test, which employed the thinking-aloud method.
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During the usability test, I facilitated the evaluation, while other team members documented key observations. As we were unable to record the test sessions, capturing these insights was a critical component of our testing process.
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Our test results revealed a positive reception of our prototype, with users finding the game engaging and enjoyable. However, we also identified areas for improvement, such as unclear result screens and confusing button states, which we promptly addressed.
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This rigorous usability test enabled us to conclude our project with a refined and polished prototype, that met the expectations of our target audience, and provided a superior user experience.

Final Design

 

Retrospective

In retrospect, this project was highly successful. Our team's ability to communicate effectively and conduct thorough research into user pain points, technical feasibility, and target audience preferences was critical to laying a solid foundation.
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Throughout the project, we leveraged design thinking and product thinking processes, facilitating a Scrum-based approach to work that enabled us to remain highly adaptable to changes and uncertainties that arose.
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Our commitment to these processes and work approach resulted in the development of a product that was engaging, intuitive, and aligned with user expectations. The successes achieved throughout this project can be attributed to the hard work and dedication of our team and their adherence to best practices in project management and product development.

Gallery

Find here all the different screens from our product.
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