Agreeing the scope
To show how easy it is to create an engaging eLearning game, the team sat down at our Leeds office @AvenueHQ to scope out the concept for a new gamified contact form for our website. To maintain user engagement, we decided to make the gamelet short - with completion to take less than 1 minute - while ensuring that it is accessible to all.
Getting the basics right
The first part of our journey from eLearning idea to engaging gamelet in a few days was to draw up a plan, so like any agile tech organisation, the team got to work on the whiteboards. By mapping out the process, we could see the individual tasks each team member would need to undertake and any potential difficulties that could arise.
Building for accessibility first
When building this course, we want to ensure that we aren't removing functionality for non-visual learners or those who might struggle with fine motor skills. We want to build a gamelet that provides the same experience for any learner and doesn't discriminate against people with different learning and accessibility needs. A common approach in eLearning seems to be removing accessibility functionality altogether by putting it on the 'too hard' list, which we don't think is fair.
With accessibility one of the primary focuses, this early planning ensures that the gamelet is designed with this in mind from the start rather than being an afterthought in the development process. Writing a detailed Storyboard that includes audio-description to accompany the graphic design makes sure that nothing is missed in enabling visually impaired people to have the same learning experience as any other learner.
Our goal is that all action within the game should be driven by the learner answering a question correctly rather than needing to use their motor skills. It’s essential to keep accessibility in mind throughout the entire process to produce gamelets that are WCAG AA compliant and provide a genuinely fun and engaging experience for all users.
Agreeing the brief
Our view is that eLearning games can - and should - be interesting to play. Using our team's creative, storytelling, design and technical development skills, we make exciting and gamified courses that keep the educational content in focus. This short gamelet should give you a taster of the work we produce.
So, what’s the brief?
· Make a short gamelet that can be completed in less than 60 seconds
· Make it look graphically interesting and engaging to play
· Demonstrate our own processes so that others can use approaches that work
· Finally, but most importantly, MAKE IT ACCESSIBLE!
Next step: Concept creation!
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