Desk Crit Received: #5

From: Audra Edwards
Date:04/13/08

Hi, Daisy!

Here is some feedback about your game. We discussed some of these items Thursday night.

I really like the design of your game and think that it is a neat way to help someone learn about preparing a meal for a diabetic. I have no knowledge about how to prepare a balanced meal for someone with these special needs, so I found the game to be particular interesting and informative.

The introduction is very appropriate and gives good information about how to participate in the activity. You might want to add a statement about having a piece of paper and a pencil handy to help with calculations.

As we discussed, when the game begins, it would be good to have the information for each food already displayed. It is fun, though, to watch the information appear dynamically! Maybe you could add an instruction that says to mouse over each food for the information and then click on the food to choose it. Remember that I suggested you change the words "portion size" to "number of servings" since this is the typical language used on food labels. I like how the calories are calculated automatically based on the number of servings. If someone accidentally leave the serving size blank, the calculation says NaN- maybe add a message here in case that happens. It may be helpful to put something in the directions about clicking on the total calories button to calculate- someone may not realize that they need to do this and they may just continue on to the next section.

I don't know how difficult this would be, but it would be neat to have an area on the screen that shows the choices that have already been made. For example, when the learner moves on to the bread screen, the information about the meat they chose is still displayed somewhere.

The last suggestion that I have is to not only have the calories calculated for each section, but also the carbohydrates. This is because the game specifies that the calories and carbohydrates are important is preparing a meal for a diabetic. It wouldn't hurt to also include the total amount of fat since that information is included in the nutrition information.

I hope that you find my feedback helpful. I enjoyed your project and think that you have constructed a great educational game!

Audra
PS Please see the attachment for some editing feedback.