DESIGN + EXPERIENCE
Strategy
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We first needed to determine the feasibility of the game and the possibility of it becoming a durable asset. Through extensive discussions and brainstorms, we were able to develop a strategy to use the game for our own internal experiences (Global Engineering Days at Intuit) as well as showcase our capabilities and in-house innovation to an external audience at our booth at the Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, FL.
In order to have a successful gaming experience, there must always be a presence of conflict or problem-solving in order for it to be engaging. The objective of any game play is for users to continue to play the game. This is achieved through incentives or providing players with gratification when play is successful.
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We determined that the purpose of our game "Code Defender" is to protect the day-to-day of an engineer from blockers that interrupt innovation in the form of dedicated time to code. The object of the game is punch out as many blockers such as syntax errors, emails, slack messages, meetings, and bugs in order to protect your time to code, the Intuit engineer's number one priority, as gathered by internal user research and surveying. While racing against a countdown, time is awarded when blockers are punched or when pickups are acquired.
Concept sketch and wireframe
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Using Procreate, I sketched out a few concepts of what the game play experience may look like, not knowing as a group yet how it would look in relation to the visual language of the overall Global Engineering Days experience. Since this was an AR game, we wanted to create an experience where users walk in through a portal in order to play the game via QR code.
Prototyping and user testing
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We went through multiple rounds of iteration across every touchpoint of the AR experience we can think of. Colors were carefully selection to match the art direction of the event. Our business units QuickBooks, creditKarma, TurboTax, and Mailchimp were all featured as pickups or boosters, providing players more time to kill bugs and up their score. Difficulty was revisited multiple times in an effort to make gameplay "challenging enough", but still attainable for all players to reach a certain score and win prizes. Music, sound effects, environment, and pace were meticulously selected in order for the game to feel authentic, challenging, and engaging.
All these elements were carefully crafted through continuous user testing and the solicitation of feedback from our engineering community. The global Intuit community consists of over 8,000 technologists, and 10,000 non-engineering individuals who value customer obsession. Dozens of engineers provided useful and honest feedback that allowed us to dial in the experience, and create a meaningful product for thousands of Intuit team members and prospective employees to enjoy.
User flow for internal audience
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We created a flow that allowed users to fully immerse themselves in both the game and theme of the overall experience at Global Engineering Days. Our technologists were encouraged to come on campus and enjoy a week full of heads down coding, festivities, and innovation. For our internal audience, being on campus meant having a larger footprint where activating a life size portal through your mobile camera view and walking through it would allow for a fully immersive experience.
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User flow for external audience
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At Grace Hopper, the premier career event for women and non-binary technologists, game play was limited to the Intuit booth footprint. With so much foot traffic and the possible risk of a physical hazard, we eliminated the portal initialization experience and brought our users right into the game. As an external audience, we needed to make sure we engaged players quickly and effectively, essentially eliminating a lot of the context of portals and focusing on an experience that was all about defending their code, a universal principle for global engineering community.
Gameplay
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View the production experience of the Code Defender mobile AR game here. Make sure sound is on.