Tag: gamification

Video Games Are Good for Your Mind. Designer’s Survival Guide: Gamification

by John-Carlos Lozano

Gamification (or just plain “gaming”) is a huge buzzword in the learning community. According to the experts in human behavior and brain development, gaming is not only good for you, but essential to the development of parts of our brains that control our cognitive skills. As with any topic of this nature, we will continue to evolve our approach as experts expand our knowledge of its true potential. But to get us started, in this first post of a series on gamification, let’s discuss the building blocks of gaming, which begin with something we are all familiar with: play.

Play is an essential part of gaming; in fact, a game is just play with rules. Play is the animal kingdom’s classroom. The urge to play is so strong that it can actually overrule the urge to eat! Check out this short video that I found after discovering a fascinating TED talk by Stuart Brown, called “Why Play Is Vital No Matter Your Age,” focused on the power of play. It can be argued that our traditional way of learning, where we sit and read in a classroom, is not most efficient way for us to learn. As Clark Aldrich asked in his book Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds, “Have you ever seen a mother lion with her cubs sitting at a blackboard being taught to hunt? No, they learn by playing.”

What does learning start with? It starts with a question. However, as Beau Lotto discusses in his TED talk, questions create uncertainty. Lotto argues that uncertainty is naturally a negative, “If you are uncertain that is a predator, then you’re most likely dead.” One could argue that to teach or train someone successfully, we would need to overcome that uncertainty. What better way than to use games? Uncertainty is at the core of every game and games are able to transform uncertainty into something fun and enjoyable.

If you are a visual designer, you may ask yourself, “Why is he talking about psychology and how we perceive our world around us?” I truly believe that gamification is not as simple as plopping on a leaderboard or a badge. To use gaming successfully to promote learning, we must understand why and how they work.

Stay tuned for more on this topic. I look forward to sharing all the research and forward-thinking that I encounter on a daily basis!

Visual Perception. Designer’s Survival Guide: Tip of the Week

by John-Carlos Lozano

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Steve Jobs was not the first to enlighten us with this quote; it was that brilliant Renaissance man, Leonardo Da Vinci, who coined the phrase. Simplicity and clarity are important factors in human perception and how we process visual information. One could possibly argue that Leonardo’s statement was a premonition for the future: a future where our human brains act as computer servers, constantly receiving information from an infinite amount of devices. Luckily, our brains have the intuitive ability to reduce information down to what’s essential and relevant. Our brains focus on what we perceive as important, and everything else fades to the background. As interaction designers, our challenge is determining not only what to include in our designs, but how to visually communicate key messages, so they are retained by our audience.

Before putting pen to paper (or tablet), it is best to understand the fundamentals of human perception. Luckily, some large-mustached German fellows (or at least that is how I imagine German scientists to look) in the early 20th century made things easy for us by observing and documenting how the human visual system works. To better demonstrate these principles, I challenged myself to create visuals that use simple shapes.

Gestalt Design Theory: Proximity
Proximity: The distance between objects affects our perception on how objects are organized.
Gestalt Design Theory: Similarity
Similarity: Objects the appear similar appear grouped.
Gestalt Design Theory: Continuity
Continuity: In order to fill int he missing data, we often see things as continuous or whole.
Gestalt Design Theory: Closure
Closure: Our mind wants to see objects as whole so badly that it makes stuff up.
Gestalt Design Theory: Figure Ground
Figure/Ground: Our mind organizes objects in the foreground and background.
Gestalt Design Theory: Symmetry
Symmetry: We tend to organize complex objects into a whole.
Gestalt Design Theory: Common Fate
Common Fate: Objects in groups who move in motion together are perceived as grouped.

Let’s have a little fun. Test your understanding of the Gestalt principles and see how many you can spot in this screenshot.

Gestalt Design Theory Test

How did you do? Compare your answers with mine.

  1. Continuity: Even though this bar goes behind the cloud, our eye continues on to make it a whole piece. This is also Figure/Ground because the cloud appears to be in front of the bar. Do you see continuity in any other place? Check out the skyline in the background.
  2. Closure: Even though the back and next arrow button circles are cut off, we know that they are circles.
  3. Proximity and Similarity
  4. Continuity is also seen here in the sliders.
  5. Common Fate: In the final version of this drag and drop, the hotspots blink in unison so the learner knows that this is the group where the tire can be dropped.
  6. Symmetry: This 3D object, though complex, is recognized by your mind to be a familiar shape: a dump truck.
  7. Figure Foreground: Items seem closer than the ground floor.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more visual design lessons.