The purpose of this DEM (distance education module) video project was to take a principle of design from Lidwell, Holden, and Butler’s (2015) The Pocket Universal Principles of Design and make an educational video about it. In this case, I chose gamification as my principle. Part of the reason for this was that I had had some prior exposure to gamification, and I wanted to do more with it. Thus, I set out to make an educative, yet fun distance education module.

I had never made a YouTube video—or any type of video, really—before, so the project was a struggle when it came to the technological part of things. However, before any of that, I tried to think of an audience this video would appeal to. Gamification is perhaps unconsciously well-known and acknowledged, but as a formal principle of design, it is rather obscure. I decided to make this educational video for people interested in learning how games make things fun, and I endeavored to convey through my video that making things fun leads to people being more willing to do things, even things that seem tedious.

As far as constraints go, I first had a difficulty working with the recording feature of PowerPoint, making the framework and voice-over of the video, and then I had even more difficulty using CamtasiaStudio8 to edit and render the video. I had taken copious during the associated class about how to get everything set up, but my rough draft was still quite lackluster, if functional. I spent a long time revising the project and making sure the video design itself was game-like, as that, to me, strengthened the video from mere explanation to application.

For the process, first, I had a great deal of research to do regarding gamification. It might seem like a simple design principle, but I found out there was far more to gamification than I had previously learned about. I already knew about the piano stairs experiment, coined “The Fun Theory,” but that alone was not enough to make my education module. I found many, many images of games and things considered game-like, and I compiled them all into the PowerPoint that would become the Camtasia file. I also had empirical research to do, as well. As Garrett () states in his work on user experience, “[I]f your users have a bad experience, they won’t come back” (p. 14), and I applied this to my video by trying to make it a fun experience, and not just another boring lecture. In the final version, I sped up the pace and added music from Scott Joplin’s “The Maple Leaf Rag” to keep things moving. I built the initial premise of the video on information about gamification from Lidwell et al. (2015), and then I moved on to other scholars of gamification. In “Don’t make me think!”, Krug () shows the difference, mainly pertaining to the Web, between things that make us think and things that don’t make us think. I did not want my education module to be something people would have to think about. That would almost defeat the purpose of making it a usable educational video. Therefore, I chose easy-to-recognize images, such as a chessboard and a marching band. Even the piano stairs experiment was an easy concept to understand: stairs that play music are more fun to use than normal stairs. The whole video was designed to be simultaneously familiar and fun, while still teaching the audience about gamification as a principle of design. All of the work for this project demonstrates Media Production Literacy. The project was purely digital in every way, and I worked to produce this video as a YouTube video, similar to countless educational videos on the Web. My education module also demonstrates Visual Communication due to the vast amount of research I conducted to make this video visually and aurally appealing.

It was very difficult condensing everything about gamification into one three-and-a-half-minute video. I had to really speed up the pace upon my final revision. After my presentation of the rough draft, I received complaints that it was too slow and dull. I took this advice to heart and worked to liven the video up—especially because I wanted it to be almost like watching a game being played out. The final version was more rewarding, although I wish sometimes I could refine it even further.

Garrett, J. J. (). User experience and why it matters. The elements of user experience.

Krug. (). Don’t make me think! 10-19.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2015). The pocket universal principles of design. Rockport Publishers, Inc.