Presentation Theater
“I’ve been saying for the longest time one reason this country is in such a mess is because we are politically illiterate. And one reason for that is that we don’t teach civics anymore in school. CIVICS! 14 kids in Providence, Rhode Island sued their school for not teaching them civics. They said, “You are not preparing us for living in democracy.””
-Bill Maher — Real Time with Bill Maher - 1.25.19 (HBO)
This week part of my discussion with my thesis advisor, once I explained my progress (which I will go into later below) is the notion of how I will present this idea. In his agency, they call this ‘Presentation Theater’, basically prefacing the actual presentation of the product by first determining what the “dramatics of the story are”. Often times they use a ‘man on the street’ approach with quotes and audio/video to dramatically set the stage for the well-conceived/designed solution. The Bill Maher quote above really reaffirms the problem I see clearly now after months of research and interviews. Setting the stage with a liberal fire-brand may not back up my ‘balanced approach’ to both sides of the aisle, but it is powerful.
Besides my thesis advisor, I also presented my latest prototype and sought the advice of our co-professor in thesis, Graham Letorney.
Before the proto, I started with wireframes
Knowing that both the app’s visual as well as actual copy language need to be engaging to the target user, I started fleshing out the wireframes with slightly more detailed screens, playing around with color and glimpses of gamification such as points, leaderboards, badges and a simple multiple choice quiz.
The structure I have established for now is a competitive quiz app that starts with a primer level that would teach the student about basic terms and jargon they may find useful as they become more civically minded.
Left unanswered were many practical questions she had about modern citizenship, from how to vote to “what the point of taxes are.” As for politics, she said, “What is a Democrat, a Republican, an independent? Those things I had to figure out myself.”
- Aleita Cook (high school student from the NYT article)
This statement reaffirms my belief that even the very basic fundamentals of politics is being neglected in schools. The primer level will be essential. It was supposed to be a way to warm up the kids before they hit the issue levels, but perhaps it needs to be omni-present and accessible throughout the app experience as a way to guide them when they are confused about basic things. Perhaps POLLY the bot can assist them with basic questions they have or pop up every once in a while with a quick lesson about say the mid-term elections or why we pay taxes.
After the primer, the user can choose which issue they would like to start with. There would be short quizzes concerning the issue followed by the answer along with perhaps a poll graph showing how all of the users answered so the student can compare. Then there would be facts pertaining to the preceding quiz question. Every action would have points associated with them to encourage engagement. For instance, if you answer correctly you might get +2 points. If you read the facts you might get +10. If you clicked on a hyper-link you would get perhaps +25 and so on.
I mentioned in my previous blog that I want to use POLLY the small icon as a character. There could be pop-ups in which POLLY states how many points the user will get for doing something specific.
The question of competition is being considered. Some people argue against it. Some say it’s essential to encourage engagement. I will be testing my latest prototype with real high schoolers shortly so their opinion will help decide. My gut tells me that competition is healthy. You can choose to compete with individuals, your classmates, schools, districts, counties, states. It could be interesting how various schools score in comparison, how various states score. I feel that gamification in this context will be motivating. Is there head-to-head competition? Should it be timed? Should it be more of a you-are-matched-with-this person for this week and see the outcome at the end of the week score-wise. Other educational apps have just scores with a leaderboard you aspire to get on. Perhaps there should be a bot or pretend student to match up against if no one real is available. Should you compete against the average scores and try to top it?
One point that was brought up during the critique was how to jump back to the facts to review them after you get through the level? This is a good point. So I need to add a bookmark button.
I will also add an audio button for students who want to hear the content rather than just reading.
An idea was conceived after a conversation in which one of the quiz questions would be in the form of a quote by a politician. This would be followed by asking the student what they think about the statement and whether or not they agree with it. They click their choice then they see who actually said it. The idea is that they can align with an idea or a statement before they are influenced or biased by whom actually said it or what party the person belongs to. Perhaps they can then truly understand what their beliefs are, rather than just automatically aligning with parties.
One of my ideas is to allow the students to comment after some of the facts are presented to them. They can have fresh minds on certain topics, log their thoughts and move on. One option is for those thoughts to be published into a public forum that their fellow students could access. Is this risky? We know how opinions can quickly become incendiary especially in politics but there is also a hope that reading these comments could be useful in opening young folks up to constructive dialogue. At the very least we could have a moderator, much like Twitter or Facebook would have, flagging inappropriate comments. there could be a Code of Conduct that the students would agree to. I will look at other social platforms to see how they handle trolly or nasty behavior.
My original idea for the comments was that once typed, they could be logged automatically so that the thoughts are fresh after reading about the issues, saved to a draft then later a prompt allowing the user to send the comment directly to their state representatives. I imagine our congressmen and women would welcome the opinions of their next constituents. I am still trying to figure out the comment section in general.
Where is the content coming from? How will I keep the content fresh and relevant? My answer will be to have freelance journalists work on POLLY, finding the most relevant issue-based content and quotes, updating either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
Lastly, I need to consider what is the ‘secret sauce’ as my advisor put it for POLLY? What is the small thing that makes the app special that is memorable? Perhaps it’s being able to see the other side’s viewpoints easily. Lots to consider.
