Just a moment...

Boredom to motivation: designing a game for student mindfulness

Project type

Grad school capstone → Launched side business

Key skills

Product design
User research
Social psychology
0 → 1 innovation

Timeframe

Jan 2023 - Present
(Main design process in 2023, currently expanding business)

Process overview

1. The challenge
2. Why we pivoted
3. Social card game
4. Design guide

Lawrence Zheng

1. The challenge
2. Why we pivoted
3. Social card game
4. Design guide

The problem:

People skill development is not supported enough in high schools

South Fayette School District came to us asking for a design solution to help their high schoolers improve their people skills (leadership, teamwork, critical thinking...).

We conducted ~30 interviews and classroom observations to gather information on socio-emotional learning in today's classrooms.

"Teaching people skills is still more of an afterthought compared to subject knowledge like math and science."
— teacher —
" We adults all agree teaching soft skills is important, but we're never quite sure how best to integrate it into the curriculum. "
— teacher —
A bit of context: the term “soft skills” was originally used in our project, but we switched to “people skills” after learning that soft/hard skills has some sexist undertones
After research and interviewing K-12 teachers, it’s clear they aren’t paid enough for what's on their plate :/

Project planning

As a lead project manager and product designer on a team of 5 grad students at Carnegie Mellon University, alongside taking an active role in the overall design and research direction of the project, I created (and adjusted) team roadmaps to keep everyone on track, lead design sprints & retrospectives, and facilitated client communication & visioning.

The opportunity:

We can build motivation for students to work on people skills

Through field research, we found that a key area to address is that students are not intrinsically motivated to work on their people skills.

Crucially, we found that undervaluing people skills is often a symptom of an overly grade-focused mindset.
“I’m not very focused on what I’m learning, but rather the grades I get. Anything that doesn't impact my grades doesn't matter.”
— student —
"[People skills] feel like something that teachers stick on a wall and expect you to do, not something you actually take seriously."
— student —
There are other key stakeholders, such as parents that contribute to this mindset, but I advocated for taking a grassroots approach and expanding outward.
Before conducting field research for this project, I never thought I’d set foot in a high school cafeteria again!
We conducted various field research activities such as interviews and having an anonymous box for how students felt about different aspects of school.

How might we

design for increased motivation to work on people skills?

We reviewed academic literature in social psychology for guidance.

Self Determination Theory (SDT) states there are 3 essential components for human well-being and motivation. I came up with the idea of using Self Determination Theory to guide design ideation due to the overlap it had with our initial design goals.
Using Self Determination Theory to design for motivation
Autonomy
"I feel free to make my own choices"
Competence
"I feel like I am able to achieve this"
Relatedness
"I feel connected and supported by others"
Motivation
"I feel motivated to do this!"
In the beginning days of our project, we had a "Shareout Friday" where we would each present either an analagous domain competitor analysis or key findings from an academic paper or article for areas of interest.

Initial prototype:

Create your own bucket list

For ideas to increase Autonomy and Competence, personal goal setting was a big recurring theme for us to be able to give students a sense of self-agency and pride. To give students a safe space to set goals, I came up with an idea for a Bucket List App and prototyped it.
This is one idea among many - we had 22 initial prototypes by the end of our long prototyping phase. Whew!
Bucket list app prototype that I created and tested
"I want to perform live music in a band"

What I expected:
‍reevaluating life priorities

By framing it as a bucket list and not a “goal setting app”, students would set goals for themselves outside of academic ones. We could then help them break down their life goals and help them realize the people skills needed for achieving those goals.
"I want to get an A on the next math test"

What actually happened:
same old schoolwork :(

Over half the students we tested with still primarily set academic goals, indicating a need to design for even further distancing from school life if we want to shift motivation to value people skills.
We found this problem wasn't limited to lack of trust in our prototype - an interview we had with the school counselor revealed similar frustrations in getting students to open up about their personal life goals.

The problem:

Our designs do not feel distanced enough from school life

Goal setting ideas failed to get students to think beyond getting better grades
Based on testing our prototypes and ideas for personal growth apps, we found the following pitfalls:

ISSUE #1

Tedious & Boring
Apps for academic & personal success feel like "homework"; would only use if required to by teachers

ISSUE #2

High Pressure
Forced activities from adults remove autonomy and generally do not create safe spaces for behavior change.

ISSUE #3

Not Taken Seriously
If given the option to be funny or subversive, many teens will opt to not take an activity seriously at all.
While it may seem discouraging that our ideas didn't work out, learning what doesn't work can be just as important (if not more important) compared to learning what does work.
My favorite anecdote to illustrate #3 is when a student jokingly wrote down "male prostitute" when we prompted him to reflect on future aspirations. Teenagers will be teenagers!

The opportunity:

We can utilize the transformative power of games.

Games have an ability to create a magic circle - an immersive space for experience taking where players can temporarily detach from the rules of the real world. This was perfect for adding a sense of distance to school life and avoiding the pitfalls of our earlier prototypes.

How does pivoting to games spark motivation via Self Determination Theory?

Autonomy
If the game is fun, there is an incentive for students to want to play the game, rather than being forced into it.
Competence
Games are generally easy to understand. There are lack of consequences for failure, creating a safe space.
Relatedness
Games can be enjoyed socially, adding a feeling of community support for well-being and motivation.
I never expected that we’d pivot to games, but it seemed like all signs were pointing toward it after research and design iteration.
As the team’s resident video game nerd who has taken game design courses, I gave my team a crash course on transformational game design.

Designing a

Social card game

After settling on exploring games as a way to empower students to work on their people skills, our team brainstormed and ideated game concepts.

A social card game concept I created, titled "Terrible Workers", ended up being the game we went with.

Transformational game design

Creating a game from the ground up

“Educational games give the vibe of something my mom would force me to play! ”
— Student interview quote illustrating the stigma that we had to work around
We brainstormed many games and tested them. One game concept I created, a card game called Terrible Workers, performed well as it was explicitly designed to not feel like schoolwork.

To combat the stigma against educational games and avoid psychological resistance, I used the Embedded Design Model to subtly weave in the learning message rather than stating it outright.
I had initially prototyped Terrible Workers independently as a sort of “proof of concept” for my team, to show we could make a fun game for people skills without spending lots of time in Unity.
Tabletop social experience
We wanted our game to be something facilitating social interaction and get high school students to talk to each other, thus encouraging a sense of community.
Subversiveness through "sabotage"
I added a "sabotage" mechanic, which was chosen because our research strongly indicated teens find subversive and competitive elements to be fun.
Intermixing
By mixing "on-topic" elements (i.e. directly related to people skills) with "off-topic" elements that are purely there for fun, the game comes off as less preachy and educational.
Obfuscating
If students are told that a game is educational, it's a turnoff. The game is designed so that players don't need to know the true purpose. If this game is integrated as part of a lesson, we recommended that teachers only reveal the "hidden message" after the game.
Distancing
An earlier version of the game was about choosing school teammates, but after testing and iteration, we shifted to provide a distanced environment so that high schoolers feel that the game is a safe space to express themselves and not have to think about academic achievement.
Card visual design
Color
We chose a bright color palette to make the game feel more vibrant and fun, thus feeling less like school work and creating more of a safe space to fail.
Typography
A basic and legible sans-serif font was chosen over a more comic-book style font after iterating on the card design, as we found that high schoolers didn't want to play games that felt too "childish".
Accessibility
The green/red card backs increase clarity between positive and negative cards; however. text and symbols are used on the card backs for accessibility and to account for colorblindness.

What is our game about?

An exciting social card game to facilitate discussion on people skills

Terrible Workers is a game about pitching yourself as a job candidate based on the skills and personality traits that you have been given. At the end of each round, "the boss" will pick someone to hire based on how much they fit the role they are hiring for.
Would you hire this person to be a Party Planner?

How does it draw in students to learn?

Designed for fun and social connection, rather than feeling like a chore

Being a card game, Terrible Workers draws people in through being a fun social experience, rather than being a "learning activity". High schoolers don't have to be in a lesson about improving their people skills to enjoy a game of Terrible Workers, making it more distanced from school life and allowing it to be a safer space for them to express themselves.
“This game is so fun!! I would love to play it after Thanksgiving dinner!”
— Playtest comment from high school student

Evaluating effectiveness:

Proven success for shifting motivation

Through using gameplay to demonstrate the value of people skills, Terrible Workers actually works for shifting the motivation of high schooler to work on their people skills.
‍
Without revealing the purpose of the game, we had students write down personal goals before and after playing Terrible Workers. Those that had played the game set more meaningful and diverse goals for self-improvement, rather than simply being tunnel visioned on academic achievement.

BEFORE
School focused goals

Before playing the game, the students primarily set lofty academic goals for themselves rather than prioritizing personal socio-emotional goals to work on in the short term.

AFTER
Personal growth focused

After playing the game, the number of students setting socio-emotional goals more than doubled, even though we didn't reveal that the game's purpose was to increase motivation to work on people skills.

From the start, success metrics were something I worried about personally because long-term behavior /attitude change is harder to measure than something like usability.
I referred to Sabrina Culyba's Transformational Framework handbook for guidelines on how to collect data points for transformational games.

Vetted by subject matter experts in game design.

"It will be a memorable experience and change the way the students interact."

Heather Kelley

Women in Gaming's Innovator Award 2013,
One of Inc.'s Five Most Powerful Women in Gaming 2013

Producing a

Design guide

While Terrible Workers was successful for shifting motivation to value people skills, we wanted to create a framework for future change beyond just producing a game.

In order to inspire and advocate for more comprehensive long-term change in the system, we created a resource for educators and designers to be able to facilitate and design similar games in the future.

Transformational game design

Compiling research findings in a digestible way

Drawing connections between different research findings
Revisiting previous research activities

Design heuristics

As part of our resource, we condensed our research and learnings over six months into 10 easily digestible design heuristics.

We connected a lot of dots between different research findings to generate our final heuristics.

"Went above and beyond to create meaningful change"

You navigated this project with such creativity, going above and beyond in adding an extra layer to create meaningful change with the design heuristics. The students were totally, authentically engaged [with the game you made].

Matthew Callison

Project Client, Director of Innovation @ South Fayette School District

What's next?

Digital play experience

As a UX designer by trade, I have been working on creating a UI for a digital version of Terrible Workers to broaden its reach and aid accessibility. Due to the game's social nature, I envision the digital version to be a Discord Activity which would be played by friends while in a Discord voice call.

Expanding our business

This project started from a grad school capstone project, but we have taken things further by expanding to a full fledged business and traveling to places to raise awareness. We are proud to have had schools and educational programs across the US (and even internationally!) buy and play our game.
Awards & Recognition

Serious Play Award 2024

Bronze Award

13th International Educational Games Competition

1st place, finished games category

I was thrilled to travel to Denmark for the first time in my life to present for the ECGBL educational games competition!
Some final thoughts...
This has been one of my favorite projects to work on, showing how many unexpected twists and turns the research and design process can take us on. It has been a wild roller coaster ride, but I feel proud that we arrived at a destination that feels meaningful, approachable and tangible.

As a lifelong gamer, I've been no stranger to the power of play, but it was still amazing to get to use gamification principles to create social good in the education space. I would love to have more opportunities to infuse playful moments, social psychology and gamification to product design and create additional spaces where people can thrive.

Thanks for reading this case study!

If you'd like, feel free to check out one of the other links here :)

© Lawrence Zheng 2024

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