Digital designer
& M.A. student

Hello stranger. I'm glad you found your way here. As you may have noticed, my name is Timm Klotz and I'm a 24 years young adult from Germany. In my undergraduate studies, I fell in love with designing customer-centric solutions for physical products. With my growing interest in technology, I discovered how much fun it can be to design the digital layer! I enjoy the process from figuring out the actual problem to iterating and testing different solutions to finally realising a lifelike prototype. When I'm not working on designs, I follow my interests in interior and 3D design, minimalism & nature.

View Resume

Digital designer
& M.A. Student

Hello stranger. I'm glad you found your way here. As you may have noticed, my name is Timm Klotz and I'm a 24 years young adult from Germany. In my undergraduate studies, I fell in love with designing customer-centric solutions for physical products. With my growing interest in technology, I discovered how much fun it can be to design the digital layer! I enjoy the process from figuring out the actual problem to iterating and testing different solutions to finally realising a lifelike prototype. When I'm not working on designs, I follow my interests in interior and 3D design, minimalism & nature.

View Resume

VALUNITE

A speculative digital service for gamers

solution

Context

2021 - 3 Months
Master Interaction Design
Project
Prof. Steffi Hußlein
Henrik Rieß

Skills

UI/UX Design
AR Prototyping
3D Modelling
Future Research

Valunite - unite in reality

In this speculative scenario, the gaming industry in 2031 commits to reduce the impact of gaming on health and social life. The result is Valunite (Valor + Unite) - a speculative digital service for gamers that creates a unique off-game encounter culture. Through engagement and social activity in the real world, elements from games are influenced in the digital space. The community is encouraged to participate in group events and challenges in their city or across Germany to make new game elements accessible.

Challenge

Designing a speculative-digital interface with a focus on the future of the world 2031.
“The challenge is to design or redesign the behavior and use of future-relevant products & services for the augmented everyday world, to redefine conventional models of thinking and communication, to design sustainable strategies, alternatives or life-enriching speculations.“ - Prof. Steffi Hußlein

Design Problem

How can a real social environment be built for gamers while maintaining the immersive gaming experience?

At the beginning of the research, megatrends and signals were critically examined in order to discover future problems. Subsequently, the selected topic of "gaming disorder" was widely explored and alternative dystopian & utopian future scenarios were imagined. In addition, user interviews were conducted, illustrations created, personas thought up and a "World Building 2031" developed. Also, many scientific papers on the topic of gaming disorder and possible solutions were researched.

01
Research & Methods

Excerpts from the research made in Miro

Entire Project Miro Board

Dystopian World 2031 Illustration

In addition, a lot of work was done on building and breaking behaviours in order to develop a successful product strategy. The main focus was on the Behaviour Model by B.J. Fogg. With this knowledge and the research results, possible strategies to control gaming addiction were compiled.

Deformed Gaming Hands

Key Findings

Freeing people from addiction altogether through a digital service has turned out to be a utopian design approach. However, making the digital gaming environment safer under certain conditions seemed possible. In an interview with a sufferer, an important aspect for the project emerged: a real social surrounding is indispensable for a safe gaming environment. This was the basic idea for the future of Valunite as a design concept.

The aim of the ideation phase was to explore as many ideas as possible and to develop speculative thoughts, followed by designing and testing exciting concepts. Through a lot of brainstorming, ideas were generated on how to reduce the user's playing time, as well as how to build and replace it with healthier behaviours. Some of these iterations were translated into visual stills and have been tested.

02
Ideation

Excerpts from the Ideation Process

Stratera Concept

In-Game Need

Stratera Ideation Concept
Stratera (Lat. balance) was a concept tested in detail from ideation. Through Stratera, the playable in-game character receives needs, which he demands. These needs are influenced by external factors in reality and must be fulfilled by the player. Without the fulfilment of the needs, further play is not possible. The appearance of these needs is linked to the daily playing time, which means that excessive, permanent consumption is not possible. The character's needs are based on common problem factors that arise from the excessive use of games.
However, this concept had a clear weakness: The immersive gaming experience is completely obliterated by the harsh sanctioning measure. Many game users interviewed would resist such a concept. For this reason, it was reconsidered for the final concept

03
Development

The final concept called Valunite - Unite in Reality represents the essence of the previously explored research and ideation phase. All previous concepts were incorporated into the final concept. The functionality, design and implementation are explained below.

Concept Architecture & AR Prototype

The precondition for the speculative concept is the reaction of the gaming companies to the WHO's decision to officially classify gaming disorder as a disease. In the future scenario, they will be forced to prioritise the well-being of players and to integrate Valunite as a preventive service in their gaming environments. Within the gaming environment, additional content and events can be unlocked with the help of the application. These are earned through participation in group events and activities in the real world.

Screenflow

An application was designed and turned into an interactive prototype. In addition, an augmented reality prototype was created in Adobe Aero to represent one of the events in the application. For this purpose, various 3D models were created, as well as a video showing how Valunite works.

04
Solution

Word and Design Mark

Application Icons

The visual design was created in such a way that the user finds himself in a game environment. A dark theme is used that is complemented by a vibrant action colour. The design language of the icons are inspired by runes and tokens from games that were designed for this purpose. The design mark is made up of the letters v and u and also creates a location symbol, which makes the geographical focus of the application clear.

Typography and Colour

Product Shots

Unique advantages
‍
_Escapism into the digital world is confronted with reality without taking the gamer out of the experience
‍
_Gamers experience challenges at the boundaries of their comfort zones, discover new shared experiences and explore their city with like-minded people
‍
_The community is encouraged to participate in group events and challenges in their city or across the country to make new additional game elements accessible

Klickprototyp in Figma

Learnings

_the use of speculative future methods in design
‍
_testing and feedback via online user interviews
‍
_Augmented Reality prototyping in Adobe Aero & Reality Composer

Digital designer
& M.A. student

Digital designer
& M.A. Student