Week 14 marks the final week of the semester, and our focus has shifted fully from development to synthesis, communication, and future positioning. Rather than building new features, we concentrated on refining how we present SoKids as both a playable experience and a research system, ensuring that our design decisions, research framing, and technical contributions are clearly communicated.
This week represents not just the completion of a prototype, but the consolidation of a research-driven design process that bridges HCI and developmental psychology.
Final Presentation Refinement
A major portion of this week was dedicated to restructuring our final presentation based on advisor feedback. One of the most important changes was moving toward a clearer narrative structure with intentional signposting.
Instead of jumping directly into demos, we now guide the audience through:
- What we built (prototypes, researcher tools, research outputs)
- Why each component exists
- How they work together as a system
This restructuring helps position SoKids not just as a game, but as a research platform designed to capture meaningful behavioral data through play.
We also refined:
- Transitions between gameplay and research system explanation
- Terminology (e.g., shifting to “researcher interface” and “data logging”)
- Demo narration to better direct audience attention
Overall, the presentation now better reflects the intentional connection between design, data, and research outcomes.
Playtesting Synthesis
As we wrap up the semester, we revisited our playtesting work and reframed it around two central research questions:
- Are children acting intentionally during gameplay?
- Does our system effectively support and capture those intentions?
This framing allows us to move beyond surface-level observations and connect our findings directly to research goals.
Key insights include:
- Children are highly engaged and exploratory
- They develop self-driven logic and patterns of interaction
- Social behaviors such as fairness, sharing, and ownership naturally emerge
- Some interactions still rely on trial-and-error due to unclear task guidance
These findings reinforce our core premise:
Play can serve as a powerful medium for capturing naturalistic, meaningful behavioral data.
Prototype & System Status
At the end of the semester:
- Prototype 1 is stable and refined, with only minor adjustments remaining
- Prototype 2 continues to explore player agency through choice-based interaction and will require further iteration
We also improved how we communicate the relationship between:
- Researcher-controlled variables (e.g., NPC setup)
- Resulting gameplay experiences
This connection is critical in demonstrating that SoKids is not just a prototype, but a configurable research tool.
Research Progress
On the research side, we have made significant progress:
- Completed initial drafts of the abstract, literature review, and methodology
- Integrated playtesting insights into our research framing
- Begun positioning the work for academic contribution in HCI and psychology
Importantly, our work this semester establishes a foundation for continued research, rather than a finished study.
Looking Forward
Although this is the end of the semester, it is not the end of the project.
We have already been accepted to present at the Serious Play Conference, where we will share our approach to designing research-driven gameplay systems.
Moving forward, we plan to:
- Submit a short paper to CHI PLAY 2026
- Continue developing the project toward full paper submissions to CHI and CHI PLAY next year
- Refine our prototypes based on ongoing playtesting and data validation
- Work closely with our advisors and research partners to analyze and validate collected data
Reflection
This final week highlights a key shift in our work: we are no longer just building a prototype, we are articulating a research contribution.
Throughout the semester, we learned how to:
- Translate play into measurable behavioral data
- Connect design decisions to research intent
- Balance engagement, ethics, and scientific rigor
As we move beyond this semester, our focus will be on continuing to develop SoKids as a scalable, research-driven system for studying children’s social perception through play.
Go SoKids!