{"id":96,"date":"2016-04-22T21:22:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T21:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/?p=96"},"modified":"2016-04-22T21:22:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T21:22:54","slug":"week-14-soft-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/2016\/04\/22\/week-14-soft-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 14 – Soft Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

After making changes based on our Playtest Day feedback, we felt we were very close to having a complete, final product for Softs. \u00a0However, we also understood that our\u00a0game and our goals were still a little confusing, so we also spent some time putting together\u00a0a presentation that would hopefully make it clearer. \u00a0As it turned out, our game was in a good place, but our explanation was not.<\/p>\n

\"Softs<\/a><\/p>\n

We began our presentation with a discussion of our project goals, as we found that was one of the most important things to understand when\u00a0hearing about our project. \u00a0We also knew our project goal\u00a0was a bit confusing, as it had changed over the course of the semester, and was now about exploring metaphors, which itself is a confusing topic. \u00a0During Softs, it felt like things were going well. \u00a0People seemed appreciative of our experience, and curious about our exploration of metaphor. \u00a0When we got feedback, however, it\u00a0turned out that people were still confused about just what our project actually was.<\/p>\n

The feedback ranged from saying we didn’t have a firm grasp of what metaphors were, to saying we came off as arrogant in our description of our project. \u00a0People said we seemed defensive, as if we were expecting people to not like\u00a0our product. \u00a0At first, this came as a big shock, but after sitting down with individual faculty members we began seeing where the confusion came from, and learned an important lesson about the importance of messaging.<\/p>\n

Essentially,\u00a0the confusion centered around one idea we tried to communicate: “We know you might not understand this, and that’s ok.” \u00a0We brought up this point because, in our playtests, the majority of people were confused by at least some portion of our game. \u00a0We wanted to assure faculty that we were aware of this issue,\u00a0but that shouldn’t be viewed as a shortcoming of the project\u00a0because\u00a0our client was aware of it as well, and was more interested in studying our process and our findings than a final product that successfully changed people’s beliefs. \u00a0However, when faculty heard this, they interpreted it as “We know you might not understand this, but trust us, we’re right.” \u00a0This was far from our intention, but gave faculty a negative perception of our process and understanding of the subject matter.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the week, we talked with various faculty members to get a better\u00a0understanding of their feedback. \u00a0It was reassuring to hear that they all actually really enjoyed our product, and once they heard\u00a0about our process in more detail, they had a much more positive view of the project in general. \u00a0They suggested that\u00a0our thought process hadn’t come across at all during our presentation, and that’s something we should focus on conveying for finals. \u00a0They told us to cite specific examples of decisions we made, and why we made them. \u00a0They said this would feel more inclusive than our original point of “You might not get it but it’s ok.”<\/p>\n

In addition,\u00a0we heard some feedback about making the interface more intuitive, so along with developing a better description of our project, we’re also making a few more UI changes. \u00a0There are also a few stylistic changes we’re making to make the final product more cohesive as a whole. \u00a0Our next major milestone is the Showcase next Wednesday, and it will be interesting how the general public views our product after all our changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After making changes based on our Playtest Day feedback, we felt we were very close to having a complete, final product for Softs. \u00a0However, we also understood that our\u00a0game and our goals were still a little confusing, so we also spent some time putting together\u00a0a presentation that would hopefully make it clearer. \u00a0As it turned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects-old.etc.cmu.edu\/surthrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}