Showing posts with label Inclusive Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inclusive Design. Show all posts

Mbira : The Fun and Interactive Game Inspired by Zimbabwe



On the 21st of May 2020 Zimbabwe celebrated the beginning of their culture week. Google Doodle honoured this day with an interactive game of Zimbabwe's 1000 year old musical instrument called the Mbira. The creation of the Google Doodle was a collaboration of different people in different fields, from writers to musicians, to visual artists and game developers.



Every game has a story and the Mbira Google Doodle is no exception.
This interactive experience follows the story of a little girl from the day she first fell in love with the Mbira to when she grows up and becomes a musician that plays the Mbira in a band. I loved watching how her mother was supportive throughout her creative journey.


The interactive experience challenged the player to play 4 traditional and modern songs in 4 levels. The songs are titled Nhemamusasa, Bangiza, Taireva and Chemutengure.

They played by simply hovering over a key on the Mbira at just the right time, following instructions that were laid out at the very beginning of the game. What I found special about this particular google doodle is that the Google team actually took a trip to Zimbabwe and worked closely with the Shona people so as to capture the authentic culture of the people in the game.




In this case, the levels and chapters of the interactive experience are synonymous. This is unlike in normal games where levels are strict and you have to finish one level to proceed to another; I realized that did not apply here. On the final page of the game, you can click on replay and choose a chapter you would like to play again or create your own mbira songs in free play. The game's 4 levels went as follows:


Level 1: It starts with the little girl walking with her Mum who is carrying a baby on her back. When the little girl hears an old Man play the Mbira, she stops right on her tracks forcing her mother to do the same. She then pushes the mother towards the old man's direction. The old Man notices her fascination with the instrument, stops playing and let's her touch it for her very first time. After that we continue listening to some beautiful Zimbabwean music as we are instructed on how to play the first song Nhemamusasa.


Level 2: Here we see a man making a tiny mbira. What's even more special about this particular moment is that the little girl has also participated in making it. We are shown the little girl picking bottle tops and handing them to the man for him to fix them on the Mbira. Once it is ready, he hands it over to the little girl and joy is written all over her face and we later see her hugging it dearly. After this emotional moment the player is taught how to play the song Bangiza.


Level 3: Takes us to the girl - now older - playing the Mbira with her peers who are dancing and playing other instruments. Her mother is still by her side as she is the one who brings her to this space. Before we proceed with the game play, we are taught about how the large calabash gourds used to make Mbiras help amplify the sound of the music. Playing the song Taivera is the next challenge in the game.


Level 4: The young girl is now an adult and plays in a band with a large crowd watching. We are taught that the Mbira can be featured with electric bands in Zimbabwe alongside drums and guitars. Things go full circle when she hands down the instrument to a young boy just the way it was handed down to her years ago. 

This highlights how the Shona people have managed to preserve the Mbira  for 1000 years through handing it down to the next generations. We then play the song Chemutengure and just like the journey of the young girl our journey as players also goes full circle.



It is a sweet story and an amazing interactive experience that introduces us to the special instrument of the Shona people. I'd like to urge you to try it out yourself here.The music from the mbira is soothing and with the current state of the World right now, the Mbira Google Doodle could not have come at a better time. 

Here are some wise words to follow as we stay safe and healthy during this pandemic. 
"Time is a healer, pain is a teacher, music is a stress reliever, be a believer" - Sauti Sol. And on that note I will leave you with these soothing sounds of the Mbira from Zimbabwe. Enjoy!





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How to Use Gamification to Impact Special Needs Lives.


Alistair was born without his sense of hearing. Doctors diagnosed him deaf but there was something else. He was different from the other hearing-impaired children; hyperactive and unable to grasp sign language. His caregiver Angela, felt like she had failed him.

One day, his teacher planned a trip to the mall and Angela panicked, but the teacher was sure her method would work. So 3 days before the trip, she realized that in order to penetrate Alistair's "defences", she needed to give him information. Information on what was going to happen to him.

They showed him images of the things he would experience on that day: an image of getting into the car, driving to the mall, arriving at the mall, browsing through the stores, getting back to the car, driving back to school and then going back home. 

Alistair was unusually calm on the day they went to the mall...Click this link to read the rest of this piece
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How Gamification Can Help You Break Language Barriers




Imagine yourself at a workshop full of Africans in different cultural attires that represent all the colors of a rainbow. Africans from Francophone countries and from other Anglophone countries.

You are supposed to work together to come up with a particular solution for your countries but because of the language barrier, you have Duo. Duo's second name is Lingo and he is the translator.

Duo is your typical Ethiopian, handsome and pleasant with hair you feel like touching by mistake and saying oops I'm sorry! As you smile and walk away thinking - mission accomplished!

He tries to be at the workshop in good time before the sessions start and he also tries to translate what is said in a way that both parties understand satisfactorily.

But Duo is only human and on the third day of the conference, he has an emergency that he has to attend to. And so the rest of you are left looking at each other wondering how the hell you will communicate effectively without Duo.

This is until Francois comes in and saves the day. Francois is from Cameroon and has this interesting hat with green, red and yellow. Colors found on his country's flag. Although he is from a French-speaking country, he also knows the English language.

So you proceed with the session of the day with Francois helping with the translation. He too struggles to translate correctly.

The previous day, you already noticed from Duo how exhausting translating can be even when it's done by a pro.

Duo translated back in English when he was supposed to translate in French and vice versa a couple of times on that day. Because of this, he was met with looks of confusion and some squashed giggles.

I hope you have seen that picture because that was my experience earlier this year when I went to Ethiopia for a workshop organized for the gamification project Enter Africa at the Goethe Institute in Addis Ababa.

Since Enter Africa is an ongoing project during and after the workshop, we still have communication issues on WhatsApp. Some people translate but most times we English speakers are left wondering what is being discussed.

All these experiences, and the fact that in the evenings after the workshop I resorted to hanging out with the English speaking people in the hotel, sparked a strong desire in me to learn French.

I really wanted to interact with my newly made Francophone friends too but the barrier in language made that an impossible task.

This flame of desire was further ignited by a conversation I had with my cousin who happens to be a game enthusiast. I asked him if he had interacted with an app that uses gamification before and if so how it had worked out for him.

A spark lit in his eye as he narrated how the language learning app Duolingo had helped him ace his French exams. How he had scored the highest in the subject. And we are talking really high because he is currently studying Civil Engineering on scholarship abroad meaning he had also passed the other subjects.

I told him that I had learned a bit of French in high school before I picked art over french classes in my second year. A couple of years ago, I had also toyed around with Duolingo before I discovered and became passionate about gamification.

As a result of my phone's storage space problems, I had since uninstalled the app. Now I had a reason to reinstall it.

But wait.

There was a better solution. As we finished our conversation, he mentioned that there's no need to download the app because one can easily access it through a browser on the phone.

With that motivation from my cousin and knowledge on how to easily access the free platform, I resumed my Duolingo journey.

The following are screenshots of my experience so far with learning french through gamification on the app and how it is influencing my learning process so far. Just a heads up for those interested in the definition of gamification I defined it in my previous article.



List of achievements I have gotten so far.




An award for maintaining a 7-day streak of practice on Duolingo


Persuasion to complete a days lesson in order to join the leaderboard. A leaderboard is where your name as a Duolingo learner is ranked against others to bring about the competitiveness found in games.


In this case, I was number 28 on the leaderboard and had accumulated a total of 100xp(experience points)



This is the most recent shot of where I am currently ranked in the leaderboard. You can only imagine how excited I am to keep on improving.


I always earn points for completing my 20min daily goal

I was crowned for reaching level 1 in the activities category of my lessons



Advanced to the Gold league


Advanced to Sapphire league



Graph that compares previous performance with the current performance.


As I tracked my progress on the graph I was challenged to level up and 40 points later, I was close to the previous days level on the graph.

As Trevor Noah rightly put it in his book born a crime , language unites people even beyond race. So why not take the opportunity to learn it in a fun and efficient way for free.

It is important to note that Swahili is one of the languages you can also learn on Duolingo. I look forward to improving on my mother tongue through a similar solution one day. What about you?

I would like for you to join me in reimaginiing yourself fluent in the language you've always wanted to learn. Getting back to reality, open a new tab on the device you are using to read this and check Duolingo out. You will soon become your own personal translator.

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