Building an edutech solution to scale Diversity and Inclusion Training
WHAT WE SHIPPED
A free-to-play web-based mobile game*. Play it here.
A web app for educators to conduct classes and facilitate post-game discussions.
10%
Referral rates from current players
15+
Schools and coporates adopted our solution
My Role
I was the Co-Project Lead and Design Lead.
I led a team of roughly 30+ active members, and a combined art and UX team of approximately 10 members.
Context
This product is the brainchild of my Co-Project Lead, Gaurav. He wanted to make a tech solution to scale Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) training.
I was brought in to be his design partner to help build a team and make the vision a reality. This case study concentrates on my contributions as a Project and Design Lead.
Building the Team and Processes
Working with my Co-Project Lead, I was heavily involved in setting up internal processes such as setting team boards, automated onboarding and regular check-ins with teams. We used Notion and Slack to ensure our loose team fo 100+ volunteers split in 6 teams could successfully collaborate remotely.
A sample page of the Notion system we built. Each team had their own sections, and onboarding had its own page to ensure new comers could self-serve
My proudest achievement was championing the creation of two specifc teams: 'Research and Ethics' (Research and Content), and 'Growth and Impact' (PR and Data).
The fusion between function and higher mission was deliberate: I recognised the value of these teams in driving our product value, and so deliberately formed them, and institutued processes to empower them to carry out their missions.
This decision paid off handsomely as the efforts of these teams kept our product in check, and even helped us through an attempt to shut the project down.
Leading Teams with Design Methodology
One of the unique skills I bought to the leadership role as a designer was how I handled team disagreements on what should be done.
During such disagreements, I would employ my design training to redirect team members back to our project goals. Does Method A help promote empathy? What about Method B? How do they compare? Can we test this?
Often, these reminders and probing helped team members re-align and agree on how to proceed.
Leading with Prototypes
Another way I led as a Designer-Leader was using prototypes to break indecision.
For instance, when we first started designing, there was a lack of clear direction, so the team had many disparate ideas (and half-baked prototypes) of what the game should be like.
To align the team, I built the first full prototype with a sample section demonstrating the full gameplay experience, and advocated its benefits to the team.
The clarity of the prototype, and the resulting discussion, allowed the team to finally align. It also helped us bag our $50k seed funding when we demonstrated it at a hackathon.
The first prototype communicated the game idea succinctly. The final gameplay mechanics does not differ largely.
After winning seed money, the team had to work out game details. I helped conduct mixed in-person and remote brainstorming sessions to iron out the details of the game.
We also used prototypes to test out ideas and beat a straight path forward.
As we neared production, once again there were various opposing ideas. I led the team in building a playtest prototype, and guided junior researchers to organise playtesting sessions and report the data to the team.
Once again, the feedback helped align the team and move us forward in the most fuss-free way.
For playtesting, we effectively built the first chapter of the game in Figma. It has 250 frames. i figured out how the prototype would work, did a POC, and had my junior UX help me assist with the building.
Lilian, our researcher (now a UX designer at GovTech), conducting playtesting with a participant.
Managing the Design Team
As the team moved into production, I led a team of 10+ voluteer designers to complete the UX and UI, and was responsible for the overall quality leaving the shop floor while .
I managed team members by giving team members clear directions and autonomy balanced with regular check-ins/design review and support.
One way I motivated team members was to allow them to pick areas of the product they were interested in, matched to their level of ability. This did mean I had to pick up whatever ‘undesirable’ parts was left, but I saw it as part of my role as a Lead so that the team as a whole could go further.
For instance, the Facilitator Dashboard team was headed by a designer who was himself a teacher. I had design reviews with them fortnightly, and helped them with next steps, stakeholders, and UI.
I was responsible for the learning and reflection module of the game, and had to get buy-in from other teams. (Zikun, the second caller from the top, is my Chinese name)
As Design Lead, I was also responsible for the Art team; I planned the art direction for the game, then recruited, contracted, and managed illustrators.
I also created and documented best practice workflows for them so that the illustrators could solely concentrate on doing the work. It was terribly unsexy, but essential for the success of the team.
I documented processes and guidelines on Google Slides so that (1) illustrators could easily access the visual reference they needed, (2) multiple team members could contribute and access the information.
My role also saw me give directive feedback on how to improve their character design or final sprites. Such feedback was possible because I have a background (and ongoing love affair) with character design and comics.
I actually did the character design for one of the characters.
My pencil sketches were then handed to an inker and colourist. You can see the progress from my intial sketches to the final sprites.
Innovating to Overcome Limited Resources
I often get asked why the characters are drawn in different styles, and if it was deliberate. It was.
Due to budget constraints, we couldn't hire a studio to produce all the art work for us. It was also impractical for a single illustrator to produce all the art.
So, the only path forward was to commission multiple illustrators, resulting in different art styles. Nevertheless, I felt this diversity of styles was justfiable for this game.
Since the game was split into 6 paths followed separate the lives of different characters, the visuals differences emphasized their diversity of plurality of views and experiences.
To that end, I deliberately picked illustrators who could convey an art style we needed for a character's story, resulting in a clear visual read of what the story of each character was going to feel like. Did we do a good job? You decide!
The Results
20,000+
Playthroughs
1,000+
New players per month
10%
Referral rates from current players
15+
Schools and coporates adopted our solution
We first released with a MVP on July 2021 and finished all 6 planned characters in 2023.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and we recieved press coverage in multiple meda channels. We were also a nominee for Best Innovation and Best Storytelling at Level Up KL 2022, an indie game award for game developers in Southeast Asia.
But reception and accolades aside, were were also successful in achieveing our original project goals,
One of our goals was to bring D&I learning experiences reach a wider audience. By advertising on social media alone and getting referrals, we acculumated 10,000+ players of different age groups.
Their engagment at voluntary end-game sharing were often long, sincere, and meaningful. This showed us the game indeed worked to bring a safe D&I learning experience to players.
We were also very successful in our goal of making D&I training more widely available to educators. In 2022, we obtained a rare backing from the Ministry of Education that allowed teachers to use our game for teaching in classrooms.
As of the start of 2023, we were adopted by teachers from 10+ schools, and have been voluntarily adopted by 6 organisations for sensitivity training.
