Cultural Education Game Playing with Distant Relatives
Culture Quest
Helping children of immigrant develop a strong sense of cultural knowledge and identity by connecting with distant family members.
timeline
6 weeks
Mar - May 2023
members
Inje Kang,
Juhi Khare,
Riddhi Jiotode
role
UX Research,
Design Framing,
Prototyping,
Visual Designs (Languge Education),
User Testing
Introduction
Cultural Education Game building connection with family and establishing own cultural identity
Children of immigrant parents often face cultural isolation while growing up in different countries from their parents' homelands. This can lead them to confusion about their cultural identity and a weakened connection with distant relatives.
To address these challenges, we suggest an interactive game specifically designed for young immigrant children. The game aims to foster psychological connections between children and their distant family members and to establish their own cultural identity.
Design Concept
Cultural Heritage Edcation
Our design concept of cultural heritage education aims not only to address users' needs and painpoints but also to cultivate inherent cultural values including morality, lifestyles, and interpersonal relations. I have conceptualized the following design approach to help children harmoniously integrate their home country's culture with their living country, thereby establishing their own cultural identity.
How it works
Television App
Interactive Board
This interactive game is played with a TV app and interactive board. The large TV screen displays the game elements and progress. The interactive board is a controller to support various interaction and activities, catering to children's tactile engagement. This board enhances the overall game interaction by integrating with TV app.
Prototypes 01
Language Education
Home screen
Start Playing!
Children can access festival information and the game start button. Normally, children play the game by completing quests to learn a language. And during festival seasons, children can experience stories related to the festivals.
I was responsible for the visual design of the home screen and the language education.
Make a call to play with
Call One of The Distant Families
Both types of the games starts by making a call to a distant family member. Children can ask questions about what they don't know and have daily conversations to build a bond with family members.
language education - 01
Check Your
Daily Quests
The language education is designed to learn Hindi through daily conversation in audiovisual ways. Today, the child will learn and experience conversations when buying vegetables and fruits at the local grocery market.
language education - 02
Find and Follow
The Route
The environment in the game provides a vivid scene by reflecting the real place names and atmosphere, allowing children to explore lively surroundings. Through the map and route for destination, children can feel the local atmosphere.
language education - 03
Talk and Learn
with Family
The child can start a conversation with a NPC (non-player character), and they can learn phrases in Hindi such as "How much are two apples?" with calling. To differentiate between talking with the family and the NPC, the child should press button to talk with NPC.
language education - 03
Talk and Learn
with Family
reward
Great Job!
Once completing the quest, the child can get a reward. This reward system can be extended as a future scope to purchase specific items within the game, such as decorating the avatar or buying festival-related crafts.
Prototypes 02
Festival Storytelling
popup
Special Festival is Coming!
If a festival is approaching, the game shows a popup screen of the festival. The child can listen to fairy tales related to the festival during specific season.
festival storytelling - 01
Listen to the Festival Fairy Tale
The fairy tale is displayed in two languages. The child listens to the family member reading the story while calling.
festival storytelling - 02
Take the Quizzes
While following the story, the child is supposed to take quizzes related to the story for a deeper understanding.
reward
Great Job!
Same as the language education, the child will be given a reward at the end of the story.
Are you interested in the project?
The following sections cover the entire process of the project
Design Framework
Should Do, Can Do,
Can Know, Forms
In this project, we adopted Should Do, Can Do, Can Know, and Forms that demonstrates 4 different dimensions of a design project. Each dimension represents value and vision(Should Do), concepts and approaches(Can Do), domain knowledge(Can Know), and interactive Forms. For more information, visit the following link.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3338103.3338109
Should Do
Value and Vision
Meta - Structure
Everywhere / Near
Primary
Preserve Cultural Heritage
Secondary
Educate Children Living Abroad
Can Do
Concepts and Approaches
Meta - Structure
Preserve - Connect
Change - Persuade
Primary
Strengthen Social Cohesion
Maintain Cultural Identity
Gamification
Secondary
Instruct Cultural Symbol/Language
Quiz & Storytelling with Family
Can Know
Domain Knowledge
Meta - Structure
Collections
Primary
Inventory
Secondary
Language, Cultural Festivals and Story
Forms
Design Forms
Meta - Structure
Virtual and Physical
Primary
TV and Tablet App
Secondary
Game, Interactive Board
Predispositions
Based on the literature review, we established 3 predispositions for immigrant children and their cultural heritage. These predispositions presented the direction of entire project and primary research.
If an immigrant family is not particularly interested in their cultural heritage, children may be less motivated to learn about it
Immigrant children may be subject to stereotypes and biases about their cultural heritage in public places
Immigrant children may be subject to stereotypes and biases about their cultural heritage in public places
Primary Research
Through interviews and observation, we determined the primary problem space for this project as language, tradition, and family relationships. Based on this research findings, we integrated the needs, painpoints, and goals into the child and parent persona.
User Persona - Child
User Persona - Parent
User Test
We identified and refined our prototypes by reflecting on the following feedback.
- Give users a correct answer if they can't guess
- Better to make it enjoyable (our initial prototypes were more like education)
- It needs to show what they are doing, what function is working
Reflection
- Personally, dealing with Indian cultural heritage was a challenge to me as a Korean. It is required to constantly learn with those who are familiar with Indian culture and validate whether the content is biased.
- It was my first project on cultural education, establishing design values that respect cultural diversity
- Unlike the usual process of human-centered design, we adopted and applied a new design framework in this project, finding it to be a new approach to design.
Future Scope
- After this project, it is necessary to establish specific game elements based on various examples of cultural language education and expert opinions
- Consistent with each design elements, user testing and evaluating processes are required for User-Board-TV interactions
- The revenue structure of this game can be embodiedthrough the rewards to purchase game items and festival-related goods.
