Ggul-Jaem 꿀잼
TEAM
ROLE
Physical construction of prototypes
Concept development
Concept development
DURATION
5 weeks
METHODOLOGY
Hardware and Software Integration, Prototyping,
Concept development, Usability Testing
Concept development, Usability Testing
Overview
Ggul-Jaem 꿀잼 (which is a Korean slang for fun) is an interactive learning experience that encourages physical interactivity while learning the Korean language. Based on research and user interviews from Hatch, my friends and I decided to implement our learnings to create a new way to learn the Korean language.
Problem
Language learning is often an isolated experience. There's a lack of interaction, especially physical interaction if it's done online, in this process of learning
Intent
Encourage people to learn with, and from one another.
Through this collaborative and fun game environment, we hope students will be more engaged in the learning experience, and will be more likely to complete the course successfully.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Ggul-Jaem 꿀잼 is a three-player game that teaches players Korean vowels, consonants, and conversational phrases. Players learn through listening to the pre-recorded audio clips, familiarizing and memorizing it, then applying what they've learned by playing the game. Each player will only have a limited amount of vowels and consonants, so they need to depend on each other to complete the challenge.
PROCESS
Prototyping the Experience
We started scrappy, with pen and paper, just to test the experience. Korean words are made up of vowels and consonants, and so we put them in cards and tested the game with Heather, our team mate and fellow native speaker.
Our objective was to test if this method is an effective and fun way of learning.
Our objective was to test if this method is an effective and fun way of learning.
As seen in the video, we ended up learning from each other, helping one another and having lots of fun as well. With this, we knew that this collaborative experience would work as a basis for our project.
Connecting Physical & Digital
The team were split into 2—Physical Protypers (Heather and I), and the Coders (Jamie and Jieying). We collaborated on the brainstorming, concept development and basic setup. After that, we split into our roles to divide and conquer!
The set up consisted of:
A round table that is translucent in the center.
A projector used to reflect the image from the computer to the table.
Plastic tiles with a Korean vowel/consonant at the top, and fiducials underneath (that are placed on the table), seen below.
A mirror underneath the table, which was used to reflect the projector, so the computer that's attached to the projector can project the accompanying visuals.
An IR camera and light that reads the fiducials.
The set up consisted of:
A round table that is translucent in the center.
A projector used to reflect the image from the computer to the table.
Plastic tiles with a Korean vowel/consonant at the top, and fiducials underneath (that are placed on the table), seen below.
A mirror underneath the table, which was used to reflect the projector, so the computer that's attached to the projector can project the accompanying visuals.
An IR camera and light that reads the fiducials.
Below is a quick sketch on how all the pieces connect and interact with one another.
LEARNINGS
As this was a short project that required a high learning curve for all of us, the technical challenges really overpowered the other aspects of the process. However, if we had more time for this project, there are several things we would do:
Designing for discoverability.
Language learning is a highly exploratory experience. The Korean language, in particular, are very modular as it is made up of individual vowels and consonants. This makes it a great way for players to discover new words as they trying to form the ones given by the system.
Learning each other's vowels and consonants.
Our current set up and design allows for each player to be familiar with their own consonants and vowels, but not each others’. If we had more time, we’d design ways for everyone to be able to have an opportunity to also learn their friends’ vowels and consonants.
Next Project: