Micah Boswell: Sarafem UX and Brand Strategy

As a Creative Director for IMC2′s Healthcare group, I took on some complex and varied projects that involved both intensive design and intensive planning. The Sarafem Flash game was one of the most challenging and rewarding. With a limited budget and time frame, a fantastic team of designers and developers pulled off a fantastic feat that, to me, still really speaks volumes about the dedication to quality and craftsmanship that existed (and most likely still exists) within the healthcare team at IMC2.

AdverGaming

After thorough review or our market, we came to the conclusion that the best way to support the brand effort would be to create an experience that was not directly tied to any campaign call to action. We assumed the best of the target market as intelligent consumers that they’d be getting a great experience with no sell, and in so doing, we’d create greater rapport between the consumer and the brand.

Creative Shepherding

My role in this project was to craft the concept, and then shepherd the plan through design, development and final execution. The original creative brief emphasized two elements: The need to create an experience that was consistent throughout gameplay, and the need to create an approach that was filled with multi-layered feedback. It was important to me to that the game keep to a ‘console’ type experience – one that pulled in a short play-time that was full of nuanced and in-your-face elements that would leave the user with a feeling that, even though game play might be abridged, that it was consistently themed and utterly playable

Challenges

Often in the project, there were challenges and obstacles. Most of those challenges came in the form of others attempting to drive the style and gameplay into different directions. This was a well-meaning creative-conflict, and these challenges served to make the team stronger, as the issues were worked out transparently. An example was, a stakeholder insisted on changing gameplay from a console-based mouse-click shooter to a real-time-strategy feel that would have placed the player interaction in an isometric (much like SimCity) world. Another creative contributor advised a change in character names to more stereotypical names, but we were able to circumvent the challenge through dialogue regarding the balance between familiar symbols and over-stepping familiarity.

Resources

After successfully managing to circumvent both challenges, the storyboards and wireframes were handed over to an illustrator in New York City. I was set on using a talent that was known for a specific ‘bachelor pad jazz’ pen style, and we were fortunate to bring her onto the team at an excellent rate. Our plan was to have the illustrator draw up the primary elements in the storyboard, and then have team members follow up on that style with the more mundane elements, such as the scoreboard. We then handed off the project elements to the best Flash developer in Dallas – Trip Waller. Trip was [and still is] a fantastic resource because he has a magnificent knack for understanding concepts, and for accurately translating concepts into reality.

Necessity Breeds Innovation

The real win for our team was in convincing our external stakeholders to let the actual team record the voices. Every voice element you hear in this game was a member of my team. Partnering with a multimedia designers with great sound experience (Brian Stafford and Robby Kyser), we managed to shepherd graphic and copy talent in and out of a room to practice & perform the scripts and sound-effects in one take. Copy editors, graphic designers and even a project manager participated in lending a hand in the experience of the game.

Conclusion

This project was immensely fulfilling, and the process to get it to final fruition was a credit to the excellent talent I had reporting to me at the time. It’s also a testament to a supportive and creative management team. Credits: Lisa Carr, Narath Khieu, Robby Kiser, Bryan Stafford, Trip Waller, Emily Downward, Belinda Nichols and more. Without these key individuals creating, iterating, designing, writing and more, this project would have never been completed.