Remember that survey some of you took a few months ago? Well, that was to create a user profile to help me develop a diorama game for my Human Factors Methods class. We had to design a product based on user feedback. We had to do a user profile, task analysis, a prototype, user testing, and write a final report.

What you see here is a prototype of a diorama flash game that I made in PowerPoint with a macro that allows one to drag and drop items. It is a screenshot of only one of the biomes of the Nature Diorama game. Right now, it includes the Forest, Desert, and Savanna biomes with animals and plants to manipulate. The buttons on the bottom "glow" when you're at the diorama biome.

In case you're curious, human factors is a domain that blends principles of cognitive psychology and engineering and applies these principles to design with early and frequent focus on the users' needs. More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_factors. I am currently working on my Master's in Human Factors and Ergonomics/Applied Cognitive Psychology.

I am thinking of doing another iteration of this design and doing more user testing. After that, I might put it on the Internet and invite user feedback.

Here is a screenshot of one of the diorama screens. The shapes were done using a mouse and photoshop. Keep in mind that this is a prototype:


http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu128/Redkora/eco1.jpg

Also, if you are interested, I can send you the final report. It's pretty big, as it is 75 pages long. I got a 99 on it, so I'm pretty pleased with the results.