Success
Working through this game was a frustrating experience, but I suppose that is the point. Even though I did reach the end, it took much longer than it should have to answer so few questions. So many aspects were contrary to what is considered normal. There were some distractors, right from the introductory screen. The size, colour, and placement of the word “NO” led me to try clicking there first. I knew there would be a twist to the game. I thought that perhaps it would be using words with opposite meanings. The actual link to the next page was not at all obvious. Even in that bottom line, the font in all capitals and the font in a different colour were distractions. One normally does not expect a major link to appear in small font at the bottom of a page with no indication that it is even a link.
Once I actually got the form, there were more distractions. The first were the numbers at the top of the page that flashed green. It makes you think there is something important happening there. Normally, I would expect the number 1 to remain green if I am on the first page of the form. The other major distractor was the time window that continued to open each minute. How to get the window to disappear was not entirely obvious at first. My brain is trained to look in the top right corner for an “x” or a large button to close the window. The fact that the window kept popping up gave a sense of urgency to the activity that really wasn’t there.
Throughout all pages of the form there were unexpected elements. Password requirements were strange and normally a password is not shown on the screen. Having three separate fields for an email address is unusual. The pre-filled check boxes made me pay more attention to selections. On a real form, I may end up signing up for something unintentionally. For the house and box numbers, only having the option of using the up and down arrows for inputting the numbers was painful. I did not accurately fill out those fields. With a house number of 2331, there was no way I was clicking the up arrow that many times. If this was a real form, I would either not fill it out or submit false information. The slider for age not having numbers shown as you slide it makes it difficult to set it for the correct age, and the range is not realistic. I don’t know any person who has lived to 200. You can’t even ignore this because you are unable to continue until it is set to match your birth date. Choosing some of the items on the form, like gender, was opposite of what is normally expected. Normally, we click on a choice and it is highlighted but in this case the highlighted item was not the chosen one.
The format of the last page was misleading. The check boxes associated with the pictures were not below or close to the images where one would normally expect to see them. The words used for identifying items could have multiple meanings which increased the challenge of completing the activity.
This game highlighted many elements used to direct our attention. Green colour is usually positive, red is negative. Font characteristics such as capitals, different colours, underlining, and size are used to draw our attention. We are more likely to pay attention to objects that are larger and more central on the screen or in a pop-up window. We become accustomed to certain conventions and when we experience situations that don’t follow those conventions, it is much more difficult to complete tasks such as this game.