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A case study redesigning website for PRIDEnet - the volunteer and community engagement sector of the PRIDE study.
Have you ever wondered, what your life would look like if you had made different choices as an international student? Or what the journey to get a greencard looks like?
The Journey is arduous but possible. Lets get rolling!!
PRODUCT DESIGNER
1 month
A game aimed at raising awareness about the challenges and experiences faced by international students immigrating to the USA. This game seeks to foster empathy, understanding, and provide valuable insights into the journey of international students.
2 Designers, including me
How can we gamify the immigration process for students aspiring to settle down in the US?
Every year, there are tons of students from different countries to dream of immigrating to USA with dreams of a new life. Each student has their own struggles, challenges and path to follow. With the numerous immigration laws and protocols, from education to work, there are tons of ways to achieve the 'Green Card.' Most people don't know about them all and learn them on the way as they face hurdles.
The American Dream is a multi-player board game that explores the hurdles that international students face in order to achieve their dream of becoming a US permanent resident, through the process of education and employment.
Once the app is opened, the instructions are displayed with all the rules of game play.
Game play starts with choosing the number of players and their characters respectively.
The player with the highest number on the dice starts. As the player lands on a square, they face the consequences of their decisions.
Each player rolls the dice and are assigned a country and budget accordingly.
The game transitions similarly with each player.
As the players progress though the game, their visa status changes from F1 to H1 and they reap the benefits accordingly.
We started off by talking to a lot of students who had immigrated. We found that the maximum number of students who immigrated, were from Mexico, China and India.
We then mapped out the interviews of 3 students who had particularly faced the most common problems , the ones that a majority of them had undergone.
Once we understood the main process, we started off with brainstorming all our ideas.
Once we had the major factors set in place, we started fleshing out thee basic mockups and structure of the game.
Once we had the major factors set in place, we started fleshing out thee basic mockups and structure of the game.
To be the first to receive a green card from the U.S government.
IPAD only
Physical game contains:
A board, 2 dice, playing money, Player country coins, and 3 sets of fate deciding cards.
The board has 136 squares that lead to the final spot where they receive their permanent resident status. There are 13 roll again spots, 12 spots for F-visa, 10 spots for H-visa, 13 Just my luck spots and a number of spots that have cues for players.
The board is setup and each player is given cash of $75,000 at the start of the game. Place the accelerate and decline cards face down along with the just my luck cards. At the start each player rolls the dice and are given country cards based on the hierarchy of numbers.
The game master acts as a government and controls all the money and certain cards that you receive based on what is granted by the ‘just my luck’ cards.
The players roll the dice and start moving accordingly. Based on the squares they land on, their actions will involve spending money, receiving money and moving up or back spaces.
We came up with the Immigration theme based on our own experiences of being International students in the US. We brainstormed and chose to make it a board game that can be played on phones and tablets. My contributions were largely the strategy of the game, based on the ups and downs of life (visa in this case), the issues we face and how they can be tackled, how luck is a significant contributing factor and the fear that we live in. We went back and forth a lot to define the levels of the game, spoke to a lot of students from different nationalities and collected information about the various highs and lows of migrating to the US. We hope this game would help educate people about the immigration process while also being a fun game for families and friends to play worldwide.
We came up with the Immigration theme based on our own experiences of being International students in the US. We brainstormed and chose to make it a board game that can be played on phones and tablets. My contributions were largely the strategy of the game, based on the ups and downs of life (visa in this case), the issues we face and how they can be tackled, how luck is a significant contributing factor and the fear that we live in. We went back and forth a lot to define the levels of the game, spoke to a lot of students from different nationalities and collected information about the various highs and lows of migrating to the US. We hope this game would help educate people about the immigration process while also being a fun game for families and friends to play worldwide.
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