Tiffany Tang
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Christi Merrill
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Comparative Literature/Asian L &C /
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Authors: Rachel Tang, Joshua Herzog
Abstract
When many people think of studying a new language, entertainment is not the first thing that comes to mind. There is a way to combine education and entertainment in an effective manner. Translation Networks is a project where many developers are working together to come up with the best medium for information that most appeal to users. There have been many games that have been tested, reworked, and more in order to create the best user experience. Over the past semester, the Translation Networks team paired up with a team of UROP students and we worked to improve “Tower of Babel,†a game focusing on navigating through a digital library of over 17 million entries called HathiTrust and entails connecting articles and journals translated in different languages to a specific topic. An important aspect of this digital library is that over 49% of the volumes included are not written in English. After twelve months of development, the game still contained many bugs and issues that didn’t allow the users to have a full experience, so the translation networks team hosted three game nights to hear feedback from users. Taking into account all the information we received, we were allowed to alter the appearance of the game, the layout of the pages, and the orientation of certain features in order for users to feel most comfortable and welcome when they play the game. With the help of four UROP students focusing on the research for the best user experience, software development and efficiency, UX design, and fixing bugs and issues found in the game. Overall, after working on “Tower of Babel,†the Translation Networks team and the UROP students have successfully created a multilingual game that can not only teach users how to navigate through a digital library efficiently but also allow users to have a fun and competitive experience.
