How Long To Be a Millionaire Game
A scenario-based training game for a conceptual financial planning company, used to demonstrate the importance of contributing the maximum possible funds over the longest time period to build a secure retirement fund.
Overview
XYZ Financial Planning is a conceptual financial planning company that partners with small to medium-sized business onboarding for new employees. According to a TransAmerica Center survey, 33% of Americans have no retirement saving plan. Of the 77% who do save, only half save more than $107K by their retirement age. And of these who do save, over half remove some funds prior to retirement, depleting their small nest egg further. Experts suggest that Americans need between $500,000 and $1 million saved to finance their retirement years. This requires decades of planning. Unfortunately, most Americans will spend days planning for an annual vacation that only lasts a week, while only spending a few minutes planning for ten to twenty years of retirement.
I proposed an eLearning scenario-based game called “How Long To Be A Millionaire?” The game uses a familiar TV game-show format that puts the user in real-world scenarios they must solve to fund enough money for their retirement. The user can see the outcome of their answers affect real-time decisions on their financial timeline. They can adjust these answers, or receive sage financial advice from mentor, Benjamin Franklin. The game is scored three ways: Player may retire early with enough money to retire comfortably, player may have to save longer than expected, or player won’t be able to retire at all. This demo asks players to solve three real-world scenarios and allow them to attempt to become a millionaire as many times as they wish. However, in the real world, they will only be given one chance at retirement.
The Process
Player scenario questions were researched from online subject-matter-experts (SMEs) and printed retirement planning texts to define industry-standard problems. This research revealed the common retirement planning question, how long does it take to become a millionaire? This question inspired the gamified story that would engage and persuade the intended audience in a familiar TV gameshow scenario.
Mindmeister was used to create an action-map of real-world problems and possible solutions and outcomes.
A storyboard was created to demonstrate real-world questions, possible answers, their scoring, and mentor guidance screens that included Benjamin Franklin’s famous financial planning quotes.
Thumbnail sketches were hand drawn to work out various slide layout options. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator were used to create the gameshow stage, color pallet, logo, buttons, mentor graphics and question screens.
Adobe Xd was used to create working prototype of slide layouts.
Articulate Storyline was used to create the final interactive game learning scenario.
Action Map
Several online retirement planning sites and retirement texts acted as SMEs for the conceptual XYZ Financial Planning company. These SMEs provided the previously mentioned data that defined the ongoing retirement planning industry problems and solutions.
Text-based Storyboard and Visual Mockups
A text-based storyboard was created in conjunction with thumbnail sketches to define the various slides needed for the eLearning game. Slides/layout needed for the game include a Title slide, Welcome and Introduction slides to ground the user and define the context and goal of the game, three Question slides, and a Closing / Calculation slide. Each Question slide includes an opening question layer, a Mentor / Guidance layer and Scoring layers for each answer option to show how each answer would affect the overall timeline of the game and allow the user to make an alternative answer before committing to a final answer to each question.
The storyboard includes a visual description of all images, button assets, and question/answer dialog on the screen. All answers are written as first-person responses using everyday language to simulate how an individual might respond in a real-world scenario. Each answer is given its score for a developer to apply as the final game is created.
Visual Mockups and Prototype Development
Visual mockups began with hand-drawn thumbnail sketches of layout options. Thumbnails were then mocked up in Adobe Xd to create text-based wireframe iterations that demonstrated each layer option.
After completion of the wireframe, individual components were created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Color schemes and pallets were tested and compared for continuity, clarity, and contrast.
From here I tested several iterations of layouts before settling on a simplified layout that would incorporate both the question/answer stage and the character/avatar reaction panes. A basic prototype was developed and workshopped with other IDs. Feedback from this workshop suggested further graphic simplification, altering color contrast for text legibility and layout adjustments for button placement.
The final development started with an alphabetical naming convention starting with “FileName_A” and ending after numerous tests and trials at “FileName_K” after working though several programming speedbumps, and making some visual course corrections that simplified the end product.
Results and Takeaways
As a visual designer with over 20 years-experience with presentation design and storyboarding, the iteration process developed as expected. Learning opportunities came from the interactive programming process in Articulate Storyline. After a few trouble spots, I learned that the best way to streamline the programming in Storyline was to first create a written programming storyboard in Microsoft Word that included all the variables needed for the Storyline programming. This extra storyboard work saved time in the development stage and helped streamline the process and created a fallback reference document to ensure steps were not missed.
Feedback from workshop group helped finalize graphics. I considered editing avatar images to “age” over timeline questions. Workshop feedback suggested same. Unfortunately that would have required creation of 18 separate avatar illustrations, that for this demonstration were not needed, but would be incorporated if this were a commissioned project.
Overall feedback said viewers found the project’s gaming aspect engaging, stimulating and a refreshing change from just reading pages of stats and data. Users typically clicked on all the buttons before their final answer to understand how their decision would impact their future. Several users confided they were inspired checked their own retirement investment plans after playing the game to ensure their plans aligned to their goals — which accomplishes the goal of the game.