Immersed Games
CASE STUDY
How clean design can help teachers see online educational gaming as an integral part of their curriculum.
Immersed Games is an education tech startup using games to empower student learning. Tyto, Immersed Games online learning platform, includes a data dashboard to help understand the learning happening in the game and relate the to a curriculum.
Immersed Games is an education tech startup using games to empower student learning. Tyto, Immersed Games online learning platform, includes a data dashboard to help understand the learning happening in the game and relate the to a curriculum.
The Challenge
Help Immersed Games provide teachers with a streamlined track progress interface that allows them to see a snapshot of the most critical data as well as access more detailed information about individual courses, classes, and students.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER NEEDS
Through our discovery sessions with the client and industry research, we were able to develop our core objectives for the dashboard that would best meet our user needs.
Teachers need an easy way to see the summary of essential progress insights.
Teachers need the flexibility to show as much or as little statistical data as they need fortheir personal educational style.
Teachers should be to be able to relate the content in the game to Next Generation ScienceStandards, to best evaluate learning outcomes.
Teachers need the flexibility to access information on different granular levels(Courses – Classes – Individual students)
Teachers need the flexibility to access information based on different gameplay components(Modules, Sequences, Quests, and Work Product)
DEVELOPING THE STRATEGY
CRAFTING A SMOOTH USER EXPERIENCE
After drafting the dashboard architecture and creating user stories, detailed wireframes were created and tested. This is to ensure that we create a smooth user experience that succeeds in giving educators the resources they need to see Tyto Online as a valuable tool in their classrooms.
KEY FEATURES
INFORMATION BREAKDOWN
The track progress dashboard provides educators the opportunity to attain a robust amount of information about their students’ gameplay and how it affects their knowledge acquisition. But for a teacher who might find this amount of information overwhelming, we created the “Struggling Areas” section. This module displays quick summaries of information about students or groups that fall below certain standards so that teachers may quickly get the information and make adjustments.
MULTI-LEVEL FILTERING
With comprehensive filtering, teachers can choose to filter the entire dashboard to show information for specific courses, classes, students, & date ranges. At the same time, each module has its own targeted filtering so that teachers can access the exact information they are looking for quickly and easily.
STUDENT WORK PRODUCTS
These are specifically designed displays for statistics relating to individual exercises that occur within the gameplay. These were designed so that teachers could quickly glean where a potential laps in understanding is on a group and individual level within the most specific elements of gameplay.
NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
One of the unique elements of Tyto online compared to other online education gaming is how the content of the game directly relates to the Next Generation Science Standards. This allows teachers to use the game more effectively as a way to cover topics they are required to have in their lesson plans. We developed modules that would make it easy for teachers to see at a glance what material they have covered from these standards, and where there is a lack of understanding among the students.
PROVIDING THE STYLE GUIDE
Our design was being implemented by Immersed Games’ in house developer. We provided them with an organized style guide with CSS code attached to the styles so that they could easily and seamlessly put the design into action.
The Outcome
For Immersed Games, having a well designed Track Progress dashboard for Tyto Online that successfully provides teachers with information about student learning they need is a major advantage when selling the product to teachers and schools. They are now able to better communicate their value proposition to potential clients who can instantly understand how they can use the game as part of their curriculum and lesson plans. With their learning outcomes organized in a way that is easy to understand, Immersed Games is also better able to communicate proof of their successful educational outcomes to potential investors. In addition, the improved experience for their current and future users means that they are more likely to get organic referrals through word of mouth.