Yeonsu's Portfolio
File
Edit
View
Go
Window
NAVIGATOR
FAVOURITES
Recent
ON THIS PAGE
Problem Statement
Business Context
Hypothesis
Design Decisions
Iteration & Failures
Results
Reflection
Barley Hall 1483
Barley Hall 1483
Role
Solo Designer & Developer
Type
UX Design / Gamified Learning
Tools
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Figma
Context
University Module Project
Barley Hall 1483
Turning a PDF no-one read into a gamified training tool with 100% completion — across 18 to 80+ year-olds.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How do you deliver volunteer training to users aged 18–80+ that achieves 100% task completion — without requiring a tutorial, a facilitator, or prior digital experience?
BUSINESS CONTEXT
Barley Hall relies on volunteers to guide paying visitors through a 15th-century Great Hall. The existing onboarding tool — a dense PDF — created three measurable risks:
· Volunteers with low digital literacy or visual impairments could not access it independently
· Low information retention meant guides were underprepared at point of delivery
· A 62-year age range (18–80+) made a single-format solution almost impossible to serve
The cost of this gap was direct: a volunteer who can't confidently recall key facts undermines the visitor experience and the organisation's reputation.
HYPOTHESIS
BET
If training is restructured as a short, mission-based game using familiar interaction patterns (click + drag-and-drop), volunteers across all age groups will complete it independently in under 6 minutes — and retain more than they would from a PDF.
Success metrics: task completion rate and average completion time — because a satisfied user who can't finish the training is still a failed outcome.
Three Key Decisions
1. Mission-Based, Not Quiz-Based
Quizzes introduce failure anxiety — particularly for older users. A wrong answer shouldn't feel like a test failed; it should trigger a retry. Mission structure shifts the consequence from penalisation to iteration, reducing cognitive barrier without reducing learning rigour.
3. Mission Sequence Mirrors Real-World Feast Preparation
The four missions follow the sequence: space → objects → people → order. This mirrors actual event preparation logic, which means knowledge accumulates naturally rather than being front-loaded. Inspired by how Papers, Please introduces complex rules through progressive disclosure.
2. Flash-Era Visual Language (Deliberate, Not Nostalgic)
2000s Flash games were designed for mass public audiences with no prior gaming knowledge. Their visual conventions — clear 2D icons, immediate feedback, single-click interaction — have the lowest onboarding barrier across generations. Every stylistic choice served an accessibility function.
What Failed & What Was Fixed
FAILURE POINTS
FIXES IN PROTOTYPE 2
ROOT CAUSE
Mission 3 had no positional cues — users didn't know where to drag
Added positional cues before interaction in Mission 3
Designed for 'users who would try' — not 'users who would feel lost and stop'
Insufficient visual hierarchy: text blended into background for older users
Implemented font-size toggle — directly from older participant feedback
Both user types had to be served, but only one was designed for
Correct/incorrect states were visually identical — users couldn't detect errors
Distinct colour + icon states for correct and incorrect answers
RESULTS
METRIC
TARGET
RESULT
Task completion rate
100%
100%
Average completion time
< 6 minutes
✓ 3 min 43 sec
Critical errors
1
✓ 0
Completed without assistance
80%
90%
Reported learning new information
100%
100%
KEY TAKEAWAY
KEY TAKEAWAY
Every decision made to reduce cognitive load for a 75-year-old also made the product faster and cleaner for a 20-year-old. Inclusive design improved the outcome for every user — it was never a constraint, it was the design problem.
‹
›
Yeonsu's Portfolio / Home
⊞
☰
Yeonsu's Portfolio / Barely Hall 1483
⌘
Search