Focus Group Responses (2)

1. What features would be important when it comes to carrying the iPaq with you?
Most of target audience said the iPaq would have to be secure and comfortable without it being irritating or in the way. A third of the group said fashion would be important when carrying the iPaq. Some said it should be light, where as others said the packaging should have the option to attach weights to it, so as your fitness level increases you can make it harder. One person in the group said the packageing had to be subtle, if it was obvious they would not wear it, they used the example of clipping something onto your belt as being too obvious.

2. Where are some common area's in Wellington you work out or walk?
Aro Valley, Thorndon, Cuba Street, Lambton Quay, Courtney Place, Kelburn, The Waterfront, Massey Campus, Botanic Gardens and around Parliament.

3. Please outline your average day. The more detail the better.
The information we got from the members in the target audience outlining their average day, was used to put together the scenario in our first presentation.

This is Jane,
"Hi I'm Jane"
Jane gets out of bed around seven or eight o'clock, she is usually in a hurry in the morning so doesn't have time for breakfast before heading out the door to university. Jane walks half an hour to get to university, at lunchtime Jane just buys lunch in town. Around 6.30pm Jane gets a bus home. In the evening Jane studies and relaxes at home, she has an easy and quick dinner then occasionally goes to the gym, but usually just ends up watching DVD's before heading to bed.

This is Peter,
"Hi I'm Peter"
Peter is Jane's boyfriend and Peter has the serious game Fitness Freaks on his iPaq.
Peter gets up when Jane does around seven or eight o'clock, he then lounges around online and takes a shower. Occasionally he has breakfast, but most of the time he doesn't bother. Around nine thirty Peter activates FF on his iPaq and walks to Class. After class Peter activates FF again and walks around the campus for an hour and finds some kind of food before his next class. When that class is over Peter then walks around again to build up his FF character, this time with a friend and they get a snack. Peter then has another couple of hours of class before he walks home and finds some kind of food to eat for dinner. Peter spends the rest of his night sitting at his computer and heads to bed just before midnight.

Before he got FF on his iPaq Peter would not make an effort to walk to university or to spend his free time at university walking around rather then just still down and chatting to his friends in his breaks between class.

A simple flow chart

Drawings of Caseing

Focus Group (2)

After having a group meeting, it was decided that we would ask the focus group some more questions.

1. What features would be important when it comes to carrying the ipaq
with you?

2. Where are some common area's in Wellington you work out or walk?

3. Please outline your average day. The more detail the better.

mock logo 2

For some reason i see green and white as colours for our logo

Presentation 2 Plans

I think for presentation 2 on this coming Thursday we should make a non functional example of the game using flash, so all the menus and crap will be there but of course the game will be non functional... or we could even make a movie of how it works. Will be like a promotional video, if anyone has a better idea, let me know because we have put it together this weekend

Info /

info









for chart

Body Mass Index

Height

Weight

Age

Focus Group Responses (1)

General Observations
There is a wide range of understand in this group when it come to what a serious game actually is and I believe everyones individual understanding of this is dramatically affecting their answers.

1. What do you think of the game so far? Would you play it?
Everyone in the target audience said they would be willing to try out the game. However there were a few who doubted that they would get into it or play it, simply because they do not think they would be interested in improving their fitness. I was interested to see that one person felt that the game would take up too much of their free time and though that it sound like something that was more catered for people who are into going to the gym and are into gaming. I then emailed this person back to ask why she thought that and I pitched a scenario to her involving the iPaq and her daily life, she then responded by saying if she had a free iPaq with Fitness Freaks on it, she would probably find ways to slightly change her habits so her character could get more exercise. There was a large percentage of the target group who were very excited about the game and who are looking forward to testing it out.


2. As far as characters go, would you prefer to see an avatar with a
photo of your face on it or would you prefer for it to just be a cartoon that you can
customize?
For this most the group actually said they would prefer to have a cartoon that you can customize, however many of them also mentioned the fact that if it was their own photo then the character would become more personal and the game would be more serious for them. Which is what we are trying to achieve.


3. Would you prefer the game to have some kind of story line?
For this question, almost every one in the target audience emailed me back with a question on how we would do the story line. In the end all of them bar one said a storyline would be good as it would make it more fun and so would draw you into the game more; it would also link everything together rather then simply a disconnected set of challenges, one person mentioned that a story line will help a lot by making the game more fun and there for it would seam less like actually working out. Another person in the target audience also mentioned the idea of the story being sort of like a 'pick a path' one, their reasoning for this was so if you clocked the game the next time you went to play it, it would not be exactly the same.