IMPACT HIGHLIGHTS

Designer - Team InfoDawgs

  • Avdhoot Jadhav

  • Ken Yang

  • Kenny Garrison

  • Sujata Rajkarne

Stakeholders

  • Lafayette Group, Inc.

Target Users

  • Young adults (ages 24 to 32)

Timeline

  • 6 months

ARE YOU NUTS?
A Gamified Approach to Combating Misinformation

OVERVIEW

Misinformation is an escalating threat to modern society. It undermines our institutions, confuses our public, and negatively affects our personal and social relationships. The rapid advancements in technology have changed the way we consume and share information allowing misinformation and disinformation to spread rampantly. Our sponsor, Lafayette Group, Inc., works to keep our nation’s critical infrastructure safe and secure. Their election security team creates products and services designed specifically to ensure everyone in our democracy has access to accurate and credible information. For this project, we aimed to design a gamified product that raises awareness about misinformation and disinformation while building media literacy skills in an innovative and engaging way. We hope to arm our users with the intellectual and social tools necessary to be resilient and contributing members of our information society.

THE OUTCOME

"Are You Nuts?" is an online collaborative game designed to empower the younger generation to combat misinformation in a remarkably fun, amusing, and innovative manner. Our game forces players to contemplate and reflect on how they share and consume information. We immerse our players in an imaginary world where they can learn through fun metaphors that highlight the vulnerabilities in our information habits and allow players to empathize more easily with how quickly and effortlessly anyone can be manipulated with information. Players will leave our game with a better understanding of the information environment we live in. They will have more trust in our institutions, greater respect for how their information habits affect others, and be better equipped to be contributing members of our society.

THE PROCESS

Empathize

The first step toward developing the solution was to better understand the nature and the complexity of the problem. Therefore, the team undertook a literature review of the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) phenomenon in today’s world. We learned that it is very easy to get misguided by the abundant information available on various platforms in today’s world. This is especially applicable for the youth, who primarily use digital social media platforms for consuming and sharing any information in day-to-day lives.
The second part of the literature review was to explore the concept, potential and applicability of gamification. This exercise helped the team understand how we might effectively use the approach of gamification to address the pressing challenge.
The team also conducted several domain expert interviews to better equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills needed in the misinformation and gaming space for designing a solution.
In addition, we played various games to understand the strengths and weaknesses of games in the market and to identify gaps and opportunities.

Define

After understanding the problem through the process above, the team concluded that what is needed is to build and democratize the positive and better habits and behavior for consuming and sharing the information. As a result, after several intense brainstorming sessions we decided to focus on addressing the challenge of- ‘irresponsible consumption and sharing of misinformation’. Furthermore, the team decided to focus on a section of society which are 24-32 years old.
From the second component of the literature review, we also understood that the games are effective teaching tools only if they are engaging enough. Hence, we decided to prioritize fun and entertainment within the game throughout our ideation and design process.

Ideate

The next step in the process was to conceptualize the design components and finalize the game objectives. Based on our literature review, domain expert interviews, and sponsor requirements we created an empathy map which gave us better insights into our game objective and theme.The objectives of our game were:

  • To promote collaboration among the players

  • To create a reflective environment that empowers players to think critically about information consumption and sharing habits

  • To raise awareness of information vulnerabilities

  • To build positive media and information literacy habits

  • To promote empathy and care for others

In order to achieve this, we wanted to create a game experience with the following mechanics:

  • A collaborative multi-player space

  • A theme that revolves around information sharing

  • A remarkably fun and amusing experience

Prototype

We used Figma to turn our design into a game prototype, which allowed us to better communicate our design with our sponsor and to test within the team. Because Figma is not designed to be a tool for building video games, we did run into some limitations. However, we were able to use a program called Tiled to create maps and other game assets to use in our prototype.

Test

Finally, InfoDawgs conducted usability testing with 8 users to test the prototype’s concept, design and functionality. The user feedback was extremely positive and helpful. The team could use this constructive feedback to correct and improve a few design elements.