Between Here and Okay

Introduction To Our Product
Explanation of Our Product

For better explanation and experience, please click on our Figma link!

Inspiration

At first we did a crazy eights activity, where we were open to any and all ideas. The idea that the team most gravitated towards was the idea of "Gender Norms". We did significant research into it and first ran into the idea of the manosphere and that there has been an increase in misogynistic behaviors in Australian schools according to a recent study.

From there we set out to come with a solution. Through interviews we found students enjoyed scenarios based activities and it was incredibly important to keep the engaged. This lead to thinking about a gamified experience. We then took many inspirations from popular games such as Omori, Until then and Life is strange. We wanted to use a story telling approach to better connect with students and include an element of fun by using popular games as inspiration.

What it does

It is an interactive collaborative game that creates a shared experience amongst students within a classroom to go through a 'choose your own adventure' story about a teenage boy navigating complications and scenarios about typical high school drama.

Works similar to Kahoot and Mentimeter, but rather than the host's screen showing questions, it illustrates the story and the student's screen will receive prompts that they must answer to make a decision for the main character.

As a result, our product focus on encouraging discussion amongst the students about the positiveness of opening up our feelings and how to process them healthly in a collaborative setting, thus challenging our unwritten rule 'navigating emotions is something done privately as we grow up and discussions about them should remain a secret to remain strong and protective.'

How we built it

The product was built through an iterative process of user research, ideation, and rapid prototyping. Initially we created paper prototypes that were inspired by choose your own adventure stories and visual novels to create an engaging learning experience for students to learn about navigating emotions. Then it was further developed on Figma to create an interactive simulation of the product on both devices, capturing the experience provided for students and educators in the classroom.

Challenges we ran into and what we learned

Overall the main challenges were narrowing our unwritten rule so that it is feasible to tackle within the limited time frame and simple to communicate given it is a complex and sensitive topic. Another aspect we learned was being able to make quick decisions as new insights were uncovered and prioritise tasks.

What's next for Between Here and Okay

The next step for the product would be continuing its iteration to become a fully functional product rather than a simple simulation. In addition, more research and planning will be conducted in order to effectively implement it amongst the various schools in Australia by collaborating with the Australian Government's Respectful Relationships Education program to use our product with its curriculum.