Designing to Broaden Appeal
How do you design and illustrate a digital experience that engages young adults and children alike?
First-Hand Insights: Moors Valley Visit
- Feeling of being 'out of place' if not visiting in a family group
- Little sense of being 'in touch with nature' due to lots of footfall, movement, and noise
- Very little to do for adolescents, young adults or single visitors
Defining Our Target Users
Cementing the two key audiences, families and young adults, prompted me to explore what visual style and app mechanics would appeal to both.
Commonalities Between Children and Young Adults' Video Games
In games that appeal to both target user groups, there appeared to be two defined character styles;
Universally, there were similarities in character construction:
- Character styles were either simple, fun and stylised or cool, calm, and more realistic
- All had distinguishing features or visual nuances - colour, clothing, size
- Distinct personalities - expressions, poses, dispositions
Crafting Distinct Characters
I delved into the significance and mythology behind each God to create a library of meaningful symbols.
These inspired the look and feel of each character; including colours, clothing, disposition and tone of voice.
Interweaving Symbiosis
Each character was paired to one the Earth's biomes and habitats based on their unique traits:
- Garden - Demeter, Goddess of harvest
- Desert - Helios, God of the sun
- Volcanic - Hephaestus, God of fire
- Wetland - Poseidon, God of the sea
- Rainforest - Artemis, Goddess of vegetation
- Pine Forest - Selene, Goddess of the moon
We also created a library of native flora and fauna to include in each biome in-game.
The Initial Style
The characters are depicted befriending animals to represent symbiosis and harmony, but also to broaden their appeal to users who may prefer animal characters.
Character Feedback from James, 13
Insights for Development
- James liked the distinct colours and personalities of each character, and said the character bust illustrations appeal to his age range (10-15)
- Said the full body illustration's "superhero vibes" don’t appeal to him, but a younger demographic would like it
- Prefers natural skin colours - colourful skin tones reminded him of Disney movies or aliens
Creating a More Mature Style
James could not think of any improvements for the base character style. However, I noticed the Helios character looked more child-like than the others.
Final Refinements
Although James prefers heavily stylised characters, he liked the new, more realistic Helios better, and would be "more likely to play a game using this style".
App Design & Mechanics
How do you develop an app that provides adequate challenge and thorough enjoyment for young people?
App Feedback from Tom, 20 and Isla, 15
The interviewees from our target user group were highly engaged in our initial app concept, and liked its progression.
In direct response to their feedback, wes:
- Developed the narrative- creating distinct tones of voice for plants and characters
- Make it amusing, not just educational - we made our plant backstories more wacky and personality-driven
- Give a reason to revisit Gaia AR - we developed the Plant View Gaia filter to respond to users' progress in the Symbiosis game
See another process deep dive:
