MAJOR PROJECT

28/03/2022 - 27/04/2022 (Week 1 - Week 14)

Week 1

During our first class, we were briefed about what to expect for our major project / final year project. We were given 3 different pathways to choose from:

1. To find a client and work with them

2. Do a project based on our previous dissertation

3. Do a project based on UNSDG's Goals

The first step was to choose one of the pathways and then think of a specific project we want to do. After doing research, I decided to do a project based on UNSDG's Goals.

_______

Week 2

This week I started looking into what I could do to fulfill the specific UNSDG target and goal I chose.

I chose UNSDG's third goal, "Good Health and Well-being" which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages. I wanted to specifically focus on Mental Health which is mentioned in Target 3.4 - "to reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being by 2030."

I started doing research on the importance of mental health, common causes for poor mental health, and its remedies. I then decided to brainstorm and scribble down a few project ideas and ultimately chose to focus on one idea, which was to create a card game.

Feedback

After showing Mr. Asrizal my idea, he mentioned that I should make the App my "main" project (instead of the physical cards) because I specialize in New Media. The App can also be used for people who would like to play the game as well but are unable to meet up due to distance or covid, etc.

_______

Week 3

This week I compiled my idea and rearranged them into a slide presentation. I did more research and updated my gameplay for the app version and also noted down what pages I needed to design for the app. I also started looking for inspiration to pick an overall art direction and theme for my project.

This week I also started working on my game questions by doing further research. I also sent out online surveys to figure out what topics people tend to find difficult talking about and also what topics people wish they could talk more about.

These are my slides:

Feedback

After showing Mr. Asrizal my slides, he mentioned that I should figure out the game duration, and find card games that are similar to my project, and do research on the difference between what they're doing and what I'm doing. I was also told to start designing and to do more research. Mr. Asrizal also reminded me that I should not come up with the questions from scratch, but find them through valuable and trusted sources.

_______

Week 4

This week I had an online meeting with Mr. Razif as he is my supervisor for the project. I showed him my proposal slides and explained my project to him. This week I also stopped gathering responses for my survey as I felt like I already had enough survey data to support my project.

Here is the survey that I sent out:

Feedback

After showing Mr. Razif my idea, he suggested I use Figma to create the app prototype because there are more tutorials online that I could learn from. He also asked me to think about the game's main objective and what people will "gain" from winning so that they have a stronger drive to participate and answer the questions. I was also told to start testing the game so I could figure out what problems I still needed to solve about the gameplay.

_______

Week 5

This week I updated my slides after receiving feedback from both Mr. Asrizal and Mr. Razif. Then, I started working on the design and added the progress updates to the slides as well. I also did more research on other card games that are similar to mine and made a more specific design mood board.

I then had a meeting with Mr. Asrizal to show him my progress.

Here is the updated version of my slides:

Feedback

This week Mr. Asrizal told me to compile my questions and present them on the slides, along with the justification of why the questions were asked and how answering the questions can help the players. He also told me to print out the cards to see the legibility and to start testing the cards out. Mr. Asrizal also suggested that I show my friends who are psychologists so I can get their professional opinion on this project and ask if they think this would be helpful for people, in case there are people who might question the effectiveness of my project.

_______

Week 6

This week I worked on sorting out and choosing all my questions. I also analyzed my survey results and sorted the difficulty of each question based on the results. I finalized the 80 questions I was going to use for the card game and linked all the sources for the questions. I also consulted a friend of mine who is a psychologist about my card game and asked her professional opinion on it.

Feedback

No feedback this week.

_______

Week 7

This week I started sorting out what I wanted to present for the presentation and listed out what I needed to get ready for the presentation. Initially, I wanted to show my app wireframe in the presentation but decided not to because it was far from ready. So I decided to do more research and show my card design drafts instead.

Feedback

Mr. Razif suggested that I do game testing before the presentation so that I would be able to explain the results and the outcome of the game testing during the presentation.

_______

Week 8

This week I presented my slides to the lecturers, these are my presentation slides:

Unfortunately, I was unable to do the user testing in time for the presentation because I was sick and was unable to meet up with people to play the card game.

Feedback

I was reminded to do the game testing to figure out what I had to change or improve in the game. Then Mr. Shamsul also asked me if the packaging designs I showed in the slides were final because the items inside the box would move around easily. He suggested that I give it more structure and create segments inside the box so that the items would not move around inside it.

_______

Week 9

This week I did my first round of test printing. I started printing out my cards as I had finalized all the questions previously. After I got them printed out, I felt like the cards for a bit too big and didn't feel comfortable to hold so I decided to resize them to the standard playing card size (UNO cards, poker cards, etc). I also used the cards to do user testing and I finished playing the cards after lunch with my major project classmates. I took note of questions they found difficult to understand and decided to either reword the questions or change the questions. The user testing had positive results and there weren't obstacles or worries that would require me to have to change the game concept or structure.

card test printing

I then consulted Mr. Razif on my app and discussed what pages I planned on having for the app.

Feedback

Mr. Razif said I don't need to have too many pages, it still can be straightforward. I shouldn't have too many pages and "social" features because it might turn into a "social media" app instead of a game app. I should start working on the user flow because that would help me figure out what pages are needed for my app.

_______

Week 10

After printing the cards out last week, I decided to change my card question's fonts to match the logo's font. I also tried to print my kit packaging but the print shop I went to did not have the material I wanted so I just printed it out on whatever they had to test out whether the packaging die line I created would look okay printed out. I then showed Mr Asrizal the updated card font and packaging that I printed.

the updated card font

Feedback

Mr Asrizal said that the updated font looks too cartoonish and didn't go well with my card purpose so he suggested that I look into more fonts. He also suggested that I consult with Mr Shamsul about the packaging and fix the packaging material because the one I used for the test printing was too flimsy.

_______

Week 11

This week I finalized and sent out my "point board" out for printing as they needed to be made into magnets and would require some time to get done. I decided to get the "boards" printed as magnets and then DIY the small magnet hearts because printing out custom-shaped magnets are very pricey.

magnet bottle-shaped "point boards"

I then started working on my app by doing the user flow on miro. I also made a few pages on figma to figure out what type of art style I wanted to do for the app.

Feedback

Mr Razif reminded me that although I'm working on a tight time limit, I should still remember to add animations to the app prototype to make it look more interesting and interactive. He also showed me examples of a few animations he did and suggested what I could do for mine.

_______

Week 12

After consulting with Mr Shamsul for the packaging, he booked us an appointment in the laser cutting room so we could laser cut our rigid boards for the packaging. Mr Shamsul suggested that I use a rigid board on the inside and art card on the outside to make it more sturdy.

I also made changes to the card design and decided to go for a more simple and clean look. I decided to change my main font to "Quicksand" and changed all the fonts in the other designs to "Quicksand" to match it as well.

finalized card design

Feedback

Mr Asrizal approved the new card font, "Quicksand".

_______

Week 13

I finalized all my "physical" card game designs and sent them out for printing and then focused on completing my app prototype. After watching several tutorials on youtube, I decided to do frame-by-frame animation for the cards "shuffling" movement because that seems like the most doable option for what I wanted to achieve. I decided to design the app in a similar fashion as the physical cards to match the theme and for it to look "on brand". I transferred some of the elements from the physical card game's illustrator file to Figma for this process.

Figma page screenshot

I also added animations to each page to improve the interactivity.

_______

Week 14

I had some troubles with the rigid board for the packaging and decided to ask the printing shop for different materials and they suggested I use artboard 310 for the packaging instead. So I decided to change the material for the packaging and finalized all my artwork.

Here are my finalized designs: