Games for Change
Video Game Library
Case Study
How I used content strategy and information architecture to create one of the first libraries for social impact games.
Role: Content Strategist
Year: 2010 - 2013
Where the project began
The games for change movement and the non-profit of the same name existed since 2004. While the organization worked directly with game designers, other non-profits, and key organizations throughout multiple in-person events, one of the areas it needed to grow was online. One of the ways to grow the understanding of this niche genre of games was to design a home that showcased its best examples.
The problem I had to solve
One of the major issues in spreading the “games for change” message was that there was no single place to find this niche genre of games. The games existed all over the internet, but they had no single home or library to see the breadth of what this type of game could offer.
What solutions I came up with
I worked directly with the organization’s co-presidents and an outside design agency to design the GamesForChange.org library. I created the information architecture that laid the groundwork for inputting entries into the database that would be used to display content on the website.
Design Thinking Process
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Empathize
Games for social change are a niche sub-category of games. Unless you know what specific type of games you’re looking for, it’s very difficult to find any of these games online. Not only that, the audience for games for change was obviously gamers, but also those in the non-profit space. The latter audience, while experts in their fields aren’t the most tech-savvy. We had to design a space that was easy to navigate for any user, despite their familiarity with the web or games.
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Define
The key goals for creating our library were two-fold: We had to come up with an elegant solution to display games from all over the internet in one place and the design had to be easy to sort through. Our library’s information architecture had to be designed to accommodate entries that ranged from multiple categories like social impact goal, platform, price, and more.
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Ideate
Working with a third-party design agency, we came up with several options that could make updating a living library an easy task.
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Prototype
After the foundation of the library was built, we began populating it with entries. Having a live version that got updated on a nearly daily basis helped us learn what features worked well and which needed to be improved, added, or removed.
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Test
We constantly shared the library with our community of gamers and non-profit experts. As the library grew, we’d gain feedback on its design, its ease of navigation, and new entries that should be added.
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Repeat
As the library was one of the key offerings of our organization, it was an aspect of work that constantly grew. While the library began as a place to host niche games for social change, it grew to add more contemporary titles to its list proving that social impact games have evolved since we first started this project.