tiltd
for "calm" gamers
Team
she/her
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Problem and Design Overview
The rise of online gaming has fostered toxic communities, where emotional outbursts lead to raging and hostility in chats, harming the gaming experience. The challenge is to mitigate these behaviors in real-time and create a healthier environment.
Tiltd is an in-game tool that promotes positivity by allowing players to send anonymous feedback. It displays friends' gaming status and supports real-time notifications or post-game messages to encourage reflection and promote positivity.
The desktop app interface of Tiltd.
Design Walkthrough
We chose our focus tasks because they directly address the social dynamics that play a crucial role in multiplayer gaming experiences. Our goal is to design a system that promotes positive interaction among teammates, reducing the emotional and psychological burden that can often arise in competitive settings. By focusing on these tasks, we aim to create an environment where players can engage with each other more comfortably, fostering cooperation, empathy, and team cohesion. This design ensures that players are supported emotionally and mentally during gameplay, which enhances the overall experience and reduces stress without compromising the competitive nature of the game. The hope of this design is that by creating a supportive space, players can be more focused, collaborative, and enjoy the social aspect of gaming without the added pressure of constant feedback or negative emotional reactions.
Set up healthy gaming environment to play with friends
The goal of the task "Set up a healthy gaming environment to play with friends" is to create a system that allows players to establish the tone and dynamics of their gaming experience before and during gameplay. Players can decide on the gaming mood—whether they want the session to be fun and casual or more serious and competitive—and choose whether feedback should be shared anonymously or openly. The design allows players to update their status, making it visible to their friends, ensuring that everyone is aware of their mood and availability. To foster collaboration, the system suggests inviting a friend to play together, encouraging social interaction.
Set gaming mood before starting any games to play with friends in same gaming mood.
Send an invite to friends to play together if it seems like they are having a negative game experience.
After the game, players can send custom anonymous feedback to each other, which allows players to elaborate on the real-time feedback that they sent during the game or provide additional reflective feedback. Once everyone has finished sending feedback, players can view the feedback they have received, promoting transparency and growth. This design aims to facilitate healthy communication without placing the pressure of directly providing feedback on the players, helping them enjoy their gaming experience and keep it emotionally supportive.
Send personalized feedback to friends anonymously after the game.
Calming a friend down while playing a game
The goal of this task is to provide a way for players to offer support to teammates during intense or stressful moments in gameplay. To facilitate this, players can choose to send in-game feedback using either a keyboard shortcut or an on-screen button. When hovering over the button, players are reminded of the corresponding keyboard shortcut for quick access. By pressing the ‘TT’ hotkey, players can open a round wheel menu where they can select a pre-defined message type to send to the teammate in need of support. Once a message is submitted, a voting window appears for the rest of the team, excluding the sender and receiver. The majority vote determines whether the message is sent, ensuring that feedback is consensual and constructive. Once the vote is passed, a brief supportive message is displayed on the receiver's side, offering encouragement or calming words. This design helps maintain a positive and emotionally supportive environment, empowering teammates to address tension while still fostering a collaborative and competitive experience.
Players use the in-game feedback wheel to quickly send real-time messages to friends.
Design Research and Key Insights
For our design research process, we conducted interviews with participants who have extensive experience with online games, including both those who have experienced and exhibited game rage. We selected individuals with diverse gaming experiences to gather a broad range of perspectives. The research involved both one-on-one and group interviews, using a standardized set of questions while allowing for follow-up questions to clarify responses and encourage deeper insights. This approach enabled us to explore participants' thoughts and experiences in detail.
Volatility of negative emotions while gaming
A recurring theme in our design research highlighted the significant impact of social interactions and dynamics within games on a player’s emotional state. Many participants shared experiences where toxic behavior and rage not only escalated but also spread among players. This insight heavily influenced our design choices, prompting us to identify and address a specific source of player frustration. Ultimately, we decided to focus on rage stemming from interactions with teammates, as our research revealed that negative experiences with fellow players are a common trigger. To align with this focus, we narrowed our scope to multiplayer games, where these dynamics are most pronounced.
Effectiveness of real-time feedback
Real-time feedback alerts can be effective, but only when delivered with appropriate timing and context. Our research revealed that while live feedback was considered helpful, it might not be the most reliable method for managing rage during gameplay. The effectiveness of live feedback alone in sustaining lower rage levels was uncertain. This insight guided the future of our design, leading us to develop a system that combines live notifications with opportunities for players to provide additional feedback after gameplay. This approach not only aims to create a more lasting impact on players prone to rage but also encourages in-game reflection, fostering a deeper understanding of their actions and their consequences.
Initial sketch of real-time feedback.
Positive effect of social dynamics
Friends can create a supportive environment that helps manage emotions during gameplay. Our research revealed that peer support significantly influences rage levels and the frequency of in-game outbursts. This insight shaped our design by inspiring a system that enables players to share words of encouragement with teammates during the game. By fostering positive interactions and providing uplifting feedback, this system aims to enhance the overall gaming experience. It not only promotes a more supportive atmosphere but also offers players reassurance and constructive feedback, contributing to a healthier and more enjoyable gaming environment.
Iterative Design and Key Insights
Our iterative design process began with sketches to conceptualize initial ideas, followed by storyboards to define focus tasks, create user personas, and refine our target audience. We then developed a paper prototype, which underwent a heuristic evaluation using Norman's principles to identify usability issues. Additionally, we conducted usability testing, allowing real users to interact with the prototype and provide feedback, further informing the design process.
The iterative design process from sketches to storyboards to paper prototype.
Easy in-game user experience
One key insight we iterated on was that gamers tend to prefer mechanics they are already familiar with, such as hotkeys and reaction wheels. Initially, we designed a system where pressing "TT" on the keyboard would bring up the reaction wheel. However, we discovered that this method was not intuitive for new gamers who may not be familiar with hotkeys.
To improve the user experience, we added a feature that complements the hotkey function, allowing users to hover over an icon on the interface to summon the reaction wheel and see instructions for the "TT" hotkey. This process highlighted the importance of supplemental documentation and features, as design elements that are convenient for experienced users may not be immediately obvious to newcomers.
Prototype representation of how to use the hotkey.
Minimalist design
Minimalist design and content play a crucial role in ensuring that the system does not distract or overwhelm players, allowing them to stay immersed in the core game experience. Through our design process, we realized that a significant amount of the information previously displayed on the statistics and result page at the end of each game was irrelevant to the player’s immediate experience. The page initially included extensive details, such as statistics from the past ten games, which seemed to dilute the focus on more meaningful feedback. We discovered that providing too much information could actually hinder players from reflecting on and improving their performance. By reducing the amount of extraneous data, we allowed users to better focus on key areas for improvement.
Instead of overwhelming players with a long list of statistics, the current design focuses on offering clear and concise feedback based on their teammate’s submissions. The end-game reflection page now serves as a valuable tool for improvement, fostering a more productive and focused gameplay experience.
The post-game feedback interface was simplified for a more minimalist design.
Effective methods to regulate emotion during game play
Usability testing revealed that players benefit from receiving brief, non-intrusive alerts during gameplay, with more detailed feedback available at the end. This allows players to stay aware of their emotions without disrupting their focus. Initial notifications were too direct and often heightened frustration, especially during tense moments. In response, we iterated on the alert system, testing different message types to find the most effective way to calm players without escalating negative emotions. The result is a more balanced system, where players receive supportive feedback at the right moments, enhancing both their emotional regulation and gameplay experience.
Iterations of real-time feedback messages with the intent to be quickly read by players and deliver the feedback concisely