Zizi is a game that will change any boring night with friends into a funny and educative experience. We developed Zizi as part of the course Multimodal User Experience Design in Products, within the Master in Interaction Design at SUPSI. We created a game that consists of physical cards and a voice assistant that will guide the rounds of the game. A game that will help teenagers discover more about sexuality and sexual health with their friends. This project was co-designed with Richard Hug and Camila Mendez.
Desk Research
We conducted three interviews with healthcare professionals and shared two surveys completed by 41 respondents between 12 and 20 to gather quantitative data. The survey results proved that while most teenagers had heard of UTIs, they lacked knowledge about the causes and prevention. Furthermore, many teenagers were uncomfortable discussing sexual health with their parents or healthcare providers. 36% of our respondents showed that they do not talk openly about intimate hygiene at home or with their school peers, and 44% would not speak comfortably with their friends, parents, or partners about sexual topics. 43% confirmed that they did not know that not taking proper care of their intimate hygiene would negatively affect their lives. We also found that 78% of our respondents would happily use a voice assistant to learn more about sexual health. 22% of our young respondents had already experienced at least one UTI.
Problem definition
Many young individuals are unaware of adverse sexual health behaviours and their consequences. They may prioritise other subjects over discussing intimate topics with their partners. To address this issue, we had to create a product that captures their attention while remaining educative. We had to create an experience they would not easily forget and keep thinking about, talking about, and spreading information related to sexual topics.
The concept and game dynamic
Our concept inspiration started with various games that exist today. We looked at different card and video games and decided to create a physical game as this was one of the most liked games by teenagers and our most viable option. Some game concepts that inspired our idea and are worth mentioning were Cards Against Humanity, What Do You Meme?, Bergnein, Kickstart Creativity, Let’s Talk, and Unboxed. Here are some fundamental rules we followed when designing our game:
1.The game will consist of physical cards and a voice assistant.
2.The game will remain simple and understandable.
3.Its unique, vibrant colors and visual design will make the game recognisable. If we include graphics, they will be appealing to teenagers.
4.The game will be inclusive and allow anyone to be part of it.
5.The game will be bold and will make people laugh.
Zizi is a game played with two decks of cards - red and blue. Each round, the round master reveals a red card with a sentence fragment and players use their blue cards to complete it. The game includes regular and special rounds, the latter being more unique and engaging as they are not explained on the cards. Special rounds require players to interact with Zizi to discover their purpose.
The Cards
Since cards would be the tabu discussion entry point, we decided to go bold with our content. We chose for the red cards purposefully sentences that contain fragments that could be used with almost any blue card. We also added celebrities teenagers would know - This would let teenagers roast strangers and not discriminate against people from the group (Donald Trump, Justin Bieber, Tom Cruise, and others featured in this game: We are terribly sorry!). The blue cards contain graphics that let them see what each keyword means. The blue cards would show diseases and conditions we should have heard about (such as urinary tract infections, bacteria, gonorrhea, and herpes). We also added things created by our creative civilization, such as the spicy gringo, Mississippi birdbath, banana penis, and blue waffles. Lastly, other cards would be on the relatively normal end and have something that happens to anyone, or anyone could have: Saggy boobs, morning boner, dirty vagina, unprotected sex, tiny pee pee, smegma, tiny ass, Prince Albert… You get the idea. Players have the option to scan a QR code on each of the blue cards to discover more about a specific topic.
The voice assistant object
We chose a genderless personality for Zizi. It has a neutral voice and answers that are gender-neutral. Zizi's shape is inspired by everyday objects and media, such as Pokémon, AirPods, mushrooms, and even sexualized plushies. The design features a black body, a red ring, and a transparent touch to emit light. The main body was printed in a few hours, and only the code and other physical parts were left to complete. For VA wake word recognition, we used Picovoice's Porcupine engine, and for speech-to-intent, we used Picovoice's Rhino engine. We trained both engines to recognise our game's content. The audio of Zizi was created using ElevenLabs' Prime AI to generate custom voice TTS audio files.
