Thursday 23 September: Political Games

Using game design to communicate political points of view

1) Read before Class:

• Bogost: Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism, and Advocacy

Next Major Assignment Due:

• Mini-Project due on 9/26 - See MP1 Instructions and the guide to persuasive affordances, applying the processes practiced in section last Friday.

• Design Workbook 2 due by 10pm on 10/3 - this is still a little bit in the future, but it is recommended that you think about designs as you do the unit’s readings each week!

Below is the rubric we use to grade Miniproject 1:

Sketch 1

• 0 pts No design was included

• 0.5 pts The design is not persuasive

• 1 pt The design is persuasive, but does not use a persuasive affordance

• 1.5 pts The design uses an affordance, but which persuasive affordance used is unclear

• 2 pts The design uses a persuasive affordance, but there is inaccuracy in how the persuasive affordance is deployed

• 3 pts The design correctly uses the identified persuasive affordance

Sketch 2

• 0 pts No design was included

• 0.5 pts The design is very similar to another included sketch.

• 0.5 pts The design is not persuasive

• 1 pt The design is persuasive, but does not use a persuasive affordance

• 1.5 pts The design uses an affordance, but which persuasive affordance used is unclear

• 2 pts The design uses a persuasive affordance, but there is inaccuracy in how the persuasive affordance is deployed

• 3 pts The design correctly uses the identified persuasive affordance

Sketch 3

• 0 pts No design was included

• 0.5 pts The design is very similar to another included sketch

• 0.5 pts The design is not persuasive

• 1 pt The design is persuasive, but does not use a persuasive affordance

• 1.5 pts The design uses an affordance, but which persuasive affordance used is unclear

• 2 pts The design uses a persuasive affordance, but there is inaccuracy in how the persuasive affordance is deployed

• 3 pts The design correctly uses the identified persuasive affordance

Behavior relation to issue

• 0 pts No behavior description was submitted

• 0 pts The behavior does not seem related to the social issue the assignment is about

• 1 pt The behavior is tangential to the social issue the assignment is about

• 2 pts The behavior is clearly related to the selected social issue

Behavior is specific, measurable, and observable

• 0 pts No behavior description was submitted

• 0.5 pts The description is of an attitude rather than a behavior

• 0.5 pts The behavior is not specific, not measurable, and not objectively observable

• 1.5 pts The behavior is not very specific, but in principle it could be observed/measured

• 1.5 pts The behavior is specific, but it would be difficult to observe/measure it

• 2.5 pts The behavior is somewhat specific, measurable, and observable

• 4 pts The behavior is very precise: specific, measurable, and observable

Connection between mechanism and behavior

• 0 pts The mechanism seems unrelated to encouraging the described behavior

• 2 pts The mechanism might be related to encouraging the described behavior

• 3.5 pts The mechanism is loosely related to encouraging the described behavior

• 4 pts The mechanism is related to encouraging the behavior, but is not a computational technology

• 5.5 pts The mechanism is clearly connected to the specified behavior, but may not be completely related.

• 7 pts The mechanism is clearly related to encouraging the specified behavior

• 8 pts The mechanism is likely to encourage the specified behavior

Compellingness

• 0 pts The mechanism would actively turn off the target audience

• 2 pts While the mechanism overall would not turn off the target audience, one or more aspects of the mechanism would turn them off

• 3 pts The mechanism does not turn off the audience, but lacks positive features to attract the target audience

• 4 pts The mechanism would be compelling to the target audience

Robustness

• 0 pts The device is too complicated to use or requires too much overhead to be realistic in a real user’s life

• 1 pt The device is usable, but requires users to significantly adapt their lives in order for it to work

• 3 pts The design requires some extra time and attention, but the load is reasonable in a regular users’ life

• 4 pts The design will work effectively in a real person’s life without special attention

Persuasion vs coercion

• 0 pts The design is coercive

• 1 pt The design is coercive, but this could easily be fixed without changing the core mechanism

• 2 pts The design is persuasive, but there are aspects that are coercive

• 4 pts The design is persuasive, and not coercive

Quality of design

• 0 pts The design is identical to one of the original sketches

• 1 pt The design is not original; extremely similar to a known real-world design (e.g., FitBit)

• 1.5 pts The design is very similar to one of the original sketches

• 2 pts The design is somewhat fleshed out from the original sketches, but does not significantly advance from them

• 3.5 pts Solid design along expectable/predictable lines

• 5 pts Design is truly creative and unexpected