PreviewLabs

Together with XRPeds at Yale School of Medicine, we built Cutie for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Cutie is an immersive VR game about infection prevention for parents with children in the Neonatal Infant Care Unit (NICU).

In Cutie, you play as a social media influencer that has to take care of a small alien creature that was sent to our planet as an ambassador. Because it’s not resistant to the germs of planet Earth, you have to be very careful to keep it safe from germs. While you are providing care for this little alien, people will want to come visit to see the creature for themselves. The prototype puts the player in a situation very similar to that of the NICU.

Formative Research

Before we actually started development, the project was grounded in formative research. The core goal was to specifically create targeted awareness around the surprising ways in which germs can be brought into a highly sensitive environment like the NICU.

This foundational research established the exact goals we needed to hit before we started prototyping and directly informed the project’s logic model and playbook. You can read more about this underlying framework in this paper covering the logic model, alongside the other formative research supporting the project.

Iterative Development

With the goals clearly defined by the formative research, we utilized our iterative development process to translate those objectives into gameplay. After a brainstorming phase, we started simple and shaped the experience with a rudimentary build of all the actions you have to take to enter the NICU. This is the foundation on which we improve functionality and polish the feel of the game in later iterations. In the video above, you can see the difference between the first iteration, the second iteration, and the final form of the prototype.

To practically cover the goals identified in the research, the gameplay iterations introduced specific mechanics where the player discovers how almost everything they touch becomes a risk for potential contamination. The game will ask you to take pictures of the cutie with your tablet, for example, after which you have to sanitize your hands again because the screen is a breeding ground for bacteria. There are also objects like toys that will have to get cleaned before you can let the Cutie play with them.

Another important element is outside visitors – or sometimes even NICU personnel – that are not as aware of the risks as the parents themselves. Research uncovered that the parents often don’t feel comfortable telling these people to take greater care. Therefore, in the game you will also get visitors that do not understand the importance of proper sanitation when handling the alien. The player has to explain why this matters and how they should approach their visit.

Improving Through Playtesting

Once the first iteration was ready, we brought it to NICU nurses and parents for playtesting. Their feedback helped shape later iterations, up until the more polished final product. It is important to involve all stakeholders in this process, to ensure that the final prototype is as feature complete as needed to test the effectiveness of the game for actual infection prevention.

Leverage the Iterative Development Process For Yourself

If you have an idea that you want to validate fast, our iterative approach to rapid prototyping might be a good fit. Feel free to reach out for more information.