Alula
A tablet-based teaching method for dyslexic chidlren
OVERVIEW
TLDR
I am contract game designer at Redbird Learning who also works with programming and Q/A to help modernize a teaching method for dyslexic children.
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Researched the Alula method, and other current practices to design engaging educational mini-games for children.
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Programmed designed mini-games in engine and conducted interface usability testing.
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Worked directly with development and art teams to properly implement art/UI assets in engine.
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Performed extensive Q/A of every build across multiple platforms, and collaborated with development team to tackle bugs.
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Hands on experience with children playing Alula Island to get feedback.
If you want to know more, ask me!( (I have to be vague about the teaching method)
Timeline
21 months (June'19 - March'21)
My Role
Design, Prototyping, Programming, UX Research, and Q/A Testing
Tools
Unity
Deliverables
1 Project, GDD Documentation, Concept Pitches, Extensive Studies, Student Testing, Prototypes
About Redbird
Redbird Learning is a start-up company creating educational games to help dyslexic children learn how to read and write.
To achieve this, Redbird Learning is creating a modern way to teach the Alula method ( A unique method of teaching reading and writing ) through an interactive game called Alula Island.
Introducing the Method
The Alula method is centered around a set of arm motions that correlate to the shapes of each letter, which is supposed to help build muscle memory for the dyslexic student. I correlated these arm movements into joy-stick movements. Small introductory puzzles were then made to help introduce the movement mechanic. These focused on getting the user to move out different directions using both joy-sticks.
When creating the puzzles, I tried to incorporate the movement of different letters into the puzzles to try to help the user in later parts of the game. Every puzzle piece, is set to match the physical movement of the letters. This served as a transition for beginning user's straight into the actual method.
Creating the Progression
When creating progression, I wanted to create a mobile-style progression system. This decision was made since our game would be picked up and played in short bursts rather than a single sitting. I initially had the user going around the island map in a circle, but felt as it didn't capture user progression well. I switched the design to going left to right over a with different regions to capture progress.
After changing the map I also wanted to introduce a system to encourage players to re do levels if they fail. I implemented a star system, which gave the user stars based on how well they did in the corresponding game/lesson. These stars could be used to unlock stickers to add to their collection.
UI/UX
When creating UX my main focus was to make sure that every thing was simple enough for students from different grade levels could experience the game. I also made sure every learning element was the main focus in each scene.
While I am not an artist, I created mockups of what each scene in the game should look like. After the assets were created I would manually put them in the scene.
Designing and Programming Challenge games
From the Alula method, I had to create a set of challenge games that would test the user's knowledge they learned from minigames and lesson plans. These had to also introduce new mechanics to the user, while incorporated ones they had previously learned.
CONTRIBUTIONS
POST MORTEM
Design Takeaways
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From Alula Island, I found that it was key to make sure no educational materials were lost when teaching through a game. This meant I couldn't take any short cuts or cut material from the method, without messing things up. I had to stick to the learning material and build a shell that it could fit it.
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It is very important to get user feedback early, because It allowed me to shift the design at the early stages to make sure our learning goals were met.
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Being able to design and talk with the art/dev allowed me to design knowing what they were capable of and what the team could handle.
Programming Takeaways
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Personally I found that when I first dived into the development side of things, the dev lead didn't comment their code the best, which led to a struggle to understand how things worked. So anytime I had to make something I tried to make sure I had it commented and well kept incase someone else needed to work on it.
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This project allowed me to become more of a technical designer through the need to shift from design once it was complete to becoming more of a soft programmer
QA Takeaways
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I now know just how important Q/A is. Through the life of the project and the last months of it, I ended up clocking 100+ of hours just doing testing and trying to break the game we created in order to make sure it had minimal to no bugs.
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I also learned that its good to act like your target market, so I purposely tried to think about what a child might do when playing the game.
Project Takeaways
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Overall this is the first project that I will have actually had ship, and honestly it was rewarding. Early design is so iterative and being apart of the project from the beginning has allowed me to see all the changes that are made to a game throughout its cycle and showed me how important it is to pivot design when something doesn't work.
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I personally would love to try and create an educational game again, but with a target market of a higher age grouping.