forever home

https://portfolio.newschool.edu/deshr015/

Year:

2021

Skills/ Tools

Playful, Design Research, Visual Design

In this 4 month long project, I designed a board game that fosters communication between parents and children about what it means to take care of another being and why it is important to adopt.

Initial Brainstorming

I chose two questions to focus on:
- What are the effects of animal interbreeding to create pure breeds which are bought and sold?
- How to encourage adoptions (especially abandoned animals, retired service animals, etc.)?

Peer Discussions

I conducted interviews of peers and engaged in discussions around this topic to understand people’s views and opinions on it. I also looked at research from different papers, topics like anthropomorphism and precedents on work related to human-animal relationships.

Interviews

People mentoined the American Kennel Club (AKC) which is a platform for verified pure breeders. Shelters that have rescue animals or animals that have been abandoned have a more thorough screening process to avoid animals getting abandoned again.

Prototype 1

The prototype was a physical game so that instead of individual children playing a game on their phone individually, this would help parents communicate the concerns and responsibilities much easily. After the first playtest of the intial prototype, I decided to add certain details which include different levels - preparation, foster and adoption - as the game progresses.

Prototype 2

For the second prototype and playtest, players were given all the instructions and guiding questions.

Final Output

The final prototype received a lot of positive feedback in terms of the premise, the varying levels of cards which would facilitate the understanding of different problems, the information that is getting provided and so on.