I have enjoyed educational games since middle school, with my introduction to the Oregon Trail in history class, so I was excited to think up new avenues for the EdTech company BrainSpark Games to take. After reading the initial specifications, I was a bit unclear on how to approach deciding the next product for BrainSpark to focus on, and glad for our team’s many brainstorming sessions and former students’ examples to guide our progress.
One struggle that I had throughout was conceptualizing what a math RPG would actually look like. In theory, one has been created successfully based on what we were given for the original MathQuest statistics. However, knowing both the mechanics of mathematics and RPGs, it is difficult for me to see them working together effectively to teach advanced concepts like differential equations or multivariable calculus. With that difficulty in understanding came difficulty in conceptualizing solutions to BrainSpark’s yearly loss of income; I think that we were able to land on an effective solution without needing to have a demo of MathQuest in our pitch deck, but if this were a real company I know that I would have more questions about the efficacy of studying with the tool for university-level topics.
The most interesting aspect of this class was trying to look at the difference between what consumers want and what stakeholders want, and balancing that with more preference to stakeholders if possible. The marketing tactics my team and other teams were considering using reminded me of successful companies now and made me wonder about the long-term effects of the changes we promote. As responsible designers and product managers, when we convince people that a change we propose is better and they believe us, we should ensure that it is a change that is better.
