via Parsons PLAYTECH
The feedback I got (in order of appearance):
Student from Q580 HS, 15: He wouldn’t need the app because he knows what he wants to do because of the classes he took on tech (HTML/CSS). His school will start asking him about college goals next year. He does community service at school. He is part of the Mouse Squad and he found out about this playtest day via Mouse Core, where they meet in Manhattan to build stuff. His school makes them do a “personal project” like a thesis and he created a game where you lost all your rabbits and you have to collect them back. He designed it in Unity. He likes the superpowers and super heroes slant.
Mother of two young boys: Recommended that I check out Games for Change conference at the end of this month.
Kyle Li, program director of BFA Design & Technology: It seems like when users pick “just not me” it’s the wrong answer because the interaction looks like it goes back versus “so me”. There seems like three phases of the same thing, there should be some aspect where you level up somehow. 36 pages/screens of text. If it is like Tinder, users are swiping left and right on images versus users are swiping a lot of text in my version. Game mechanics. Using the activities (Far Rockaway or the LA murals) within the app and pulling themes into the game like a water theme. Grab from all the apps that are out there and making it your own. You will end up with your system, like Instagram is about bleed photos and big type.
progress bar on the top
different kinds of interactions if you are going to “gamify” it
You want it to feel alive even when the user is not doing anything like real life
“kids like celebrations”
amplify the experience
Student from Baruch HS, 17: She is going to MIT for college. She wants to be an engineer. She knew that through taking classes in school. She didn’t understand the app, suggested having an overview of the system before (onboarding).
MFA student from The New School: Recommended that I check out her classmates project “Purp” Student from Frederick Douglass HS, 10th graders (sophomore): She takes two AP classes around business and entrepreneurial. For undergrad, she wants to go to UPENN and wants to try to double major in culinary school.
Student from elementary school, 11: She doesn’t have a phone, she doesn’t need one so some of the questions didn’t pertain to her. She wanted an option for “partly me” for the in between. Her explanation for the app: “It’s a like dating site to find friends”
BFA student from The New School: When he was younger, he wanted to be a marine biologist and he was from Nashville so he would have liked to know where he could do that in his town (”Where’s the water?”). Didn’t like the name, suggested calling it “grown ups”. He saw the most potential in connecting teens with real world things, like the example of the teens helping set up the multimedia lab at their local library because they are volunteering, but it is also beneficial to them to use in return. Making it more like building blocks, perhaps the phases you are growing within the system, building up to something (building a house metaphor). He knew some kids that went to college and still don’t know what they want to do and they are in debt.
The overall takeaway from today’s feedback is that it has to be more playful (different interactions—delightful moments) if you want it feel like a game. The youth who came to the playtest seemed like they really had a grasp on what they want to do, but always citied how they thought their peers didn’t know what they wanted to do and are confused as to where to start. They were really confident in knowing exactly what their interests were even if they couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment.
So perhaps teens already have an inkling into what they want to do, so what’s powerful about my app is not the “personality” discovery part, but the activities.