PROJECT
DETAILS
CLIENT
Graduate Classwork
DURATION
January - May 2017
METHODS
Design research, game development, UI/UX.
MY ROLE
Designer on team of 4: concept development, user research, game mechanics, screen copywriting.
PROJECT
SUMMARY
PROBLEM
Young women feel confusion, embarrassment, and fear from risk-focused sex education.
SOLUTION
A delightful digital game that reframes messaging about sex.
IMPACT
Game play engenders body positivity and confidence, and shares objective information about sex with those who play it.
Sex-Positive Education.
Developing an educational digital game for adolescent girls.
The question was - could learning about sex make you feel good about yourself ?
As a team of four female graduate students in the Design for Innovation Program at School of Visual Arts, we had been tasked with creating a game that would create a social impact.
Exploring possibilities, one woman proposed sex education, and within minutes our group was animated - sharing stories about how awful our high school sex-ed classes were, and reflecting on how much we've grown in the years since. Motivated by our own less-than-ideal experiences, we set out to learn about the landscape of sex education in America.
We spoke with teenage girls about their present experiences, and with women of all ages about their pasts. And, we interviewed people who teach young women about sex - school educators, parents, and physicians.
Overall, we learned one big thing: not much has changed.
Teenagers have SO many questions, but don't always get good answers.
First, we heard that sex education programs in schools primarily discussed sexually transmitted diseases, and sometimes anatomy and physiology. While this information wasn't useless, it only addressed a single aspect of puberty and sexuality. And, framed all of it in a negative light, portraying sex and sexuality as something to fear and avoid.
Status quo sex education is about risk and negative outcomes.
Additionally, while explicit cultural values have changed since the 1950s, it was clear that young women often still receive the same implicit messages about their bodies, from both their formal educational experiences and from society at large: messages to be 'normal', to be pleasing, and to refrain from acting on sexual desires. And, society's relationship with women's sexuality also produces shame and silence - and sexual confidence, positivity, and expression is often stigmatized. Not unsurprisingly then, many women grow up with not only unanswered questions, but with inaccurate and disempowering beliefs about their bodies, and shame about their sexuality.
We wanted to change this.
To address lack of information and the misinformation, we knew we had to make a straightforward, objectively educational game. And, to counteract the stigma, we chose to instead champion delight, humor, and amusement. Our hypothesis was that if young women enjoyed learning about sex and were relaxed while doing it, they would better be able to absorb information, and perhaps also feel more comfortable with the topic in other settings.
So, with a set of defined goals for the project, our next task was to understand how, where, when, and with whom teenage girls would like to learn about sex. More interviews and research uncovered stories that revealed one consistent finding: young women learn about sex from their friends, and from their phones.
Finally, we were ready to turn our attention to game design. What would be the goal of our game? What actions would it contain? Rules?
We brainstormed and prototyped.
Drafting wireframes and paper-prototyping game mechanics.
And digitized.
Illustrating and wireframing.
CREDIT Amanda Funiccio
