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Winner! of the Student Award – Bronze at the 2024 Serious Play Conference.
You can read more about CLEARLY! on the Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences website in the "Say It Loud and Clear: Persisting Through Parkinson's With Play" article written by Kevin Lavery.
Project Background
Project Background
CLEARLY! is a speech therapy game that encourages clear and loud speaking skills for patients with Parkinson's. The project was done in collaboration with Maura Philippone, Madeline Allen, and Adam Elfawal.
The other side of Parkinson's disease.
The other side of Parkinson's disease.
While many are familiar with the decreased fine motor function involved with Parkinson's, CLEARLY! focuses on its speech-related symptoms such as small mouth movements that can lead to soft, muffled speech. The game provides a fun alternative to traditional clinical methods for patients to work on their clear and loud speaking skills with their habitual communication partners.
Gauging effectiveness by speaking CLEARLY and loudly.
Gauging effectiveness by speaking CLEARLY and loudly.
The keys to the therapy are clarity and loudness. Clarity is determined by how well the patient's communication partners can understand their speech, and loudness is measured by the playing device's microphone.
How to Play
How to Play
Teams of speakers (Parkinson's patients) and listeners (communication partners) will be formed. The speaker will be shown a picture card and must clearly and loudly describe it to the listener in under five minutes. Each card has a word that can be said to help describe the picture, as well as a word that cannot be said (to increase the challenge level). The listener will try to guess which picture from a set is being described. There are three themed decks of cards to choose from: Gardening, Sports, and Cooking and Baking. Pairs can compete against one another to try to achieve the highest score.
Want to see more? The game is available for Windows and Mac on itch.io, or you may watch a brief gameplay demo.
The Research Process and the Original Game
The Research Process and the Original Game
Where I first come into the picture.
Where I first come into the picture.
Prior to my joining the project, an analog card game version of CLEARLY! had been created and playtested independently by Maura Philippone. A few key aspects of Maura's initial research included:
High-intensity, repetitive exercises are a common speech therapy method for Parkinson’s patients. (Narayana et al., 2022; Behrman et al., 2021; Maas et al., 2008)
While these exercises are effective, many patients find them “boring” due to their repetitive nature. (Yorkston et al., 2017, p. 566)
Maura's independent playtesting revealed that players felt a digital version of the game would be more effective than the original analog version (see right). Madeline Allen and I were then brought on to digitize the game based on this feedback. Additional objectives were laid out at this time, including the creation of illustrations to replace the previously used stock photo images, a visual rework in creating the UI, considerations related to the rules as to how they may apply differently in a digital format, and digital accessibility considerations. Overall UX was also an objective during the digitization process.
Maura Philippone's original analog prototype.
The Design Process
The Design Process
Reimagining CLEARLY! as a digital experience.
Reimagining CLEARLY! as a digital experience.
The first step in the digitization process was the creation of a style guide. Research uncovered several sight-related symptoms of Parkinson's, so the UI for CLEARLY! was developed by prioritizing accessibility. The typeface OpenDyslexic was chosen to ensure optimal readability (Franzen et al., 2019), and a magenta-green color scheme was selected as it provides effective visibility for the two types of color blindness most likely to be present among the target audience (Birch et al., 1998; National Eye Institute).
Next, planning for the prototype began with personas and wireframes, followed by the creation of the iconography and preliminary illustrations. Adjustments to the "Say" and "Don't Say" words were also made to make them more fitting to the illustrations rather than the previously used stock photos.
Below are some highlights of the research and design process. You may click on any of the images to open them in full screen.
Wireframes
(by Madeline Allen)
CLEARLY's Color Scheme, and with Blue-Green and Red-Green Deficiency Filters
Playtesting Prototype
(Listener View)
Post-Playtesting Prototype
(Listener View)
Playtesting
Playtesting
What do the experts think?
What do the experts think?
A prototype using the Sports deck was created for playtesting, which took place with speech-language pathologists. Feedback from playtesting primarily centered around the carrier phrase ("CLEARLY, it's a..." became "CLEARLY, I see...") and the "Say" prompt on the cards was changed to "Can Say" to give players the option on whether or not to use this feature. Additionally, alterations to color contrast were made with the illustrations.
This feedback was incorporated into the Sports deck and was also used when prototyping the Gardening and Cooking and Baking decks, along with the illustrations for the two additional decks.
Additional changes to the UI were made, including a bar to represent volume output rather than a numerical display, and the use of a star to indicate a correct guess rather than a checkmark to give a more exciting, game-like feel to the guesses.
The Result and the Future
The Result and the Future
We want to make this game playable for our audience.
We want to make this game playable for our audience.
Upon creation of the final prototype, Adam Elfawal was brought onto the team as a developer to make the game fully playable. The playable game includes a function where the microphone functions as a sound pressure level (SPL) meter to ensure the speaker is meeting the target volume output of 70 to 80 dB.
Moving forward, the design team hopes to conduct additional playtesting and to introduce the game in clinical settings for Parkinson's patients to put into practice their clear and loud speaking skills.
To read a detailed summary of the research, design, and development process, please browse through the slideshow below.
My Role
My Role
The key aspects of the research and design I participated in are as follows:
Illustration and Iconography
Research: Sight Considerations
Selection of Color Scheme
UX/UI Design (collaborative)
Prototyping (collaborative)
Playtesting: Planning, Note-Taking (collaborative)
Project Timeline: February 2024 to January 2025
Project Timeline: February 2024 to January 2025
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