Interaction Design III:

My Planet- Map It: More explanatory feedback, please

http://www.gogirlsonly.org/games/my_planet.asp

The Map It game in the My Planet section of the Girl Scouts “Girls Only” web site would benefit from design enhancements to improve levels of feedback, guidance and control.

The game is designed for users to create a prototype town while seeing the effect on air quality, open space and energy use. As users drag physical structures to the grassy space, the levels of open space, air quality and energy use go up or down in a gauge located at the bottom of the window.

While it is interesting to see that there is an effect on each of these factors as the town is being constructed, the site offers little explanation as to the relative impact each structure would have on these factors. For example, why would adding a factory to the town be worse that adding a stadium? It is difficult to understand why one structure is worse than the next. The degree of movement on the gauges isn’t significant enough to show major changes relative to what you’ve dragged. Also, the site poses a question: “What happens to the air quality when things are added? Why?” How are we supposed to know, when you don’t explain it to us? I certainly don’t understand why adding a parking garage decreases air quality. Cars decrease the air quality, but why would a garage? This leads me to believe that some of the representations are misleading.

The instructions of for how to use the site stay in a static window below the canvas. These instructions change to a description of each object when a user drags the item on top of the canvas. After the object is dropped to the canvas, the site should provide an explanation of why the object impacts air quality the way it does. In my opinion, the addition of explanatory feedback would improve the overall learning experience.

In addition, the degree of user control is curtailed by the design of the site. For example, users can drag structures to the canvas to see the impact on air quality, but cannot drag items off or relocate them on the canvas. The only way to remove items from the town is by wiping out all you’ve added and starting fresh. To make the “ideal” town, you have to redesign your town many times, and if you make a mistake, you’re stuck. By the end of the experience, you become more of an expert on dragging with accuracy than an expert on the relationships between air quality and energy use, unfortunately.