This is a blog post of an evaluation of surveys for student-created educational computer games presented and promoted with Aurasma.
What a mouthful!
1. Describe what you can do better/more if you have another 6 weeks for your Aurasma product.
I would use another 6 weeks to refine details of my game, such as the landform. I may try adding swampy ponds and more diverse terrains and vegetation. I would study the characters’ AI systems to make their actions more realistic.
Also, it would be really cool if WWI Trench Warfare was turned into a strategy game in which the player can move batches of combat units and command them to do different things. That would make the game more simulative of the actual history, as opposed to just controlling one character while others can only respond to stimuli. But of course, Kodu can’t do all that.
In addition, the advertisement can be improved by the rifle 3D model. I would need quite some time to refine the model’s alignment. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make the model work before peers started evaluating my poster without being wowed by the 3D Aura.
And most of all, I would love to use 6 weeks to change our school’s internet service so that we can work online properly!
2. Peer evaluations
Abigail’s Continents
Effective question 1: “Have you ever played my game before?”
- Explanation: Contrarily to my first impression of this seemingly irrelevant question, this actually tells Abigail about the survey taker. People who actually played her game and people who haven’t would each have answers that show “expectation vs reality”. By comparing what people think the game should be and what people learn the game really is, she knows more about what people want from her game and thus how to improve towards it.
Effective question 2: “What age group do you think would learn from this game?”
- Explanation: Abigail can compare how knowledgeable people think her game is and how knowledgeable she wants it to be for whatever targeted age group.
Effective question 3: “What are the things you liked and didn’t like in my game?”
- Explanation: It’s good that Abigail knows what she should keep in her as game as well as what to change. Maybe she thought something was good but other people don’t like it. Or maybe something she planned to remove turned out to be popular.
Ineffective question 1: “Do you like the game?”
- Explanation: This question is a bit too simple. I think every game has pros and cons, so people all have things that they like and don’t like.
- Suggestion: This question is more appropriate when put directly before the question “what are the things you liked and didn’t like in my game”.
Ineffective question 2: “What age group do you think will like this game?”
- Explanation: The only downside to this question is its similarity to “what age group do you think will learn from this game”.
- Suggestion: The survey could make a clearer differentiation between these 2 questions to get pertinent answers, in order to compare people’s liking and learning.
There are not enough ineffective questions to write about because Abigail has only 5 questions in total.
Scott’s World
Effective question 1: “How did you feel after playing my game?”
- Explanation: Scott has taken an “emotional approach”. Its effect is a game that will give people good feelings in addition to fun and knowledge.
Ineffective question 1: “What did you learn from my game?”
- Explanation: The question asks what did people learn from Scott’s game, but the answer can only be given as yes or no, which is then whether people learned from his game at all. The answer lacks too much detail.
- Suggestion: Change the answering type from yes/no to fill in text.
Ineffective question 2: “Do you love my game?”
- Explanation: This question is too simple. There are no follow-up questions, so he won’t get any information about why or why not people like his game.
- Suggestion: Ask below: “why or why not do you like my game?” or “what did you like and not like about my game?”.
There are not enough questions to evaluate because Scott has only 3 questions in total.
Philip’s Robin Hood Adventure
Effective question 1: “Did you learn something from my game?”
- Explanation: If the user didn’t learn anything from Philip’s game, he’s got to worry. The target of this project is not only fun, but also educational games.
Effective question 2: “Do you have any question?”
- Explanation: Philip seems to be the only one who’s asking for questions in addition to answers. He expects users to have questions for him. This is good customer service! But he doesn’t have any way to answer those questions because he didn’t ask for a contact method.
Effective question 3: “Is there any improvement I can change?”
- Explanation: It’s good that Abigail knows what she should keep in her as game as well as what to change. Maybe she thought something was good but other people don’t like it. Or maybe something she planned to remove turned out to be popular.
Ineffective question 1: “What is my purpose of this game in my video?”
- Explanation: I don’t really get this. Is Philip quizzing the survey taker? Actually, I don’t even really understand the question.
- Suggestion: I hope Philip can clarify this question. He should also make sure it helps to improve the game.
Ineffective question 2: “Do you understand how I make this game in Keynote?”
- Explanation: Now this question is making me starting to think that Philip really is quizzing the users. I think whether the user knows how his Keynote was made is irrelevant and insignificant.
- Suggestion: I think this question should be deleted. If Philip arranges his survey in a methodic way, it would be a very good survey.
Ineffective question 3: “If evaluate my keynote by 1-10. Which number you want choose?”
- Explanation: The Keynote is to inform and promote, not to show off so people could rate it on a 1-10 scale. I believe the survey is supposed to help improve the game. Even in the case of improving the poster as well, simply rating Philip’s Keynote would be useless without follow-up questions.
- Suggestion: I suggest Philip to either delete this question or add follow-up questions to ask further about his Keynote.
