Sketch Master
Project Team: Binjie Sun, Chih-Pin Hsiao, Nicholas Davis, Shuangxin Chen, Rui Chen,
Ellen Yi-Luen Do
My Role: concept ideation, wireframe, UI design, prototyping
Skill: sketch, illustrator, photoshop, axure
Sketch Master is a game designed to help the players learn and practice drawing from memory. The architecture of the tool and its various game modes are presented in paper. Additionally, Sketch Master serve as a research instrument to collect exploratory data about the relation between perception, memory, and sketching.
Wireframe
Four game modes including single, multiple, co-sketch and pass-on are designed to make the game fun and engaging to enhance your sketching skills in differnt ways.
Single
In single mode, a player gets to choose a picture, remember it and than draw from memory in a certain time period based on the difficulty of the chosen picture. During the drawing process, the player has a chance to detect the original picture for 10 seconds. After the sketch is done, there will be a score generated based on our pre-designed scoring Algorithm. Replay video and related top sketching videos will also be shown.
Multiple
In multiple mode, a player needs to choose picture difficulty level. Players choosing the same difficulty level will be randomly assigned into a group to compete with each other. During the drawing process, besides the detect feature, they also have a spy feature which can be used to spy the opponent's drawing process. Winner is generated based on the scores at the end.
Co-Sketch
In Co-Sketch mode, a player needs choose picture difficulty level. Players choosing the same difficulty level will be randomly assigned into a group and draw together on a canvas. During the drawing process, each other's sketching progress will be shown on the screen in real time. Score and replay video will be generated at the end.
Pass-On
In Pass-On mode, a player can either initiate a drawing or continue someone else' drawing. During the drawing process, the player gets a chance to detect the original picture for 10 seconds. If choosing continue a drawing, the player has one minute to add something to the selected drawing. The player has a choice to pass it on or cancel at the end.
Visual
Based on the wireframe, visuals are crafted in both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop with an emphasis on easiness of using and sketching aesthetics. We considered three things when designing this tablet app. First, the entire game theme should be related to sketching. That's why we used a toned brown color to mimic paper as a background. Second, it needs to be playful and colorful. As you can see from the screenshots above, we used a lot of colors. However, color is used not just for the playfulness, but also as a way to distinguish differnt functions and features. Last but not least, it need to be useful. People love sketching, because it's such a good way to express their emotions. And our game takes sketching to another level to let peopel not just enjoying it, but also practise noth their sketching and memory skills.
Prototype
An interactive prototype is made in Axure for conducting usability test before developer teammates started implementing the functional prototype. Axure became a very useful tool along the way for later development since we got a lot of helpful feedbacks from our testing participatants which leads to a few major iterations on the concept.
Publication
The paper was selected into ACM Creativity & Cognition Conference in Sydney, 2013 and it's also kept into ACM Digital Library for research purpose. Some other information about this project such as system architecture, score algorithm can be seen on paper.