Before I talk about our last game, I’d like to touch on the concept of user experience as it relates to the game of dodgeball.  Often abbreviated as UX, user-experience is a set of three basic elements that makes a website happy – Information Architecture (IA), Aesthetics and Usability.

Information architecture is pretty straight forward – websites operate under the same governing principles as buildings.  It doesn’t matter how cool the observation deck of your neo-gothic high-rise is going to be if the first three stories are made out of shoe boxes and staples.

Usability and aesthetics make up the front end of user experience, and go hand-in-hand. They determine the way you, the end user, interacts with the site.  Good usability means that the site takes as little contemplation as possible to operate. Being able to know what text is a link, what a given button will do, where you’ll find the information you’re looking for, etc. are all part of a highly-detailed science incorporating equal parts programming and psychology.

Aesthetics ensure that the site is as easy on the eyes as on the mind.  Done well, graphics, photography and color can be used to enhance the site’s overall UX as well as increase the credibility of the website.  Usability and Aesthetics perform a sort of balancing act together – too much one way and you’ve got a glossy art piece that’s impossible to use.  Too much the other direction and people are liable to be turned away or to lose trust in your site.

I know what you’re thinking – those paragraphs were pretty long and if you wanted to hear a nerd chirp excitedly about technical knowledge you’d call HP’s tech support and ask them to explain the difference between Netbooks and Notebooks (Do this, it makes their day.  Surprisingly, they will not just say “they’re smaller”).  So I drew up this chart to summarize:

Now, as you can see, all three of these elements are crucial to creating a happy website.  Fall short on one of them and you’re liable to create a website that could be anywhere from completely unusable to just sort of awkward in social situations.  If you think I’ve oversimplified these concepts, you’re right.  But let me remind you that this blog is actually about dodgeball.

After the last game’s less than desired outcome, we were desperate to find the flaw in our execution.  In the time since, fate had failed to deliver us the dodgeball messiah we had hoped for – James would be playing this week and he is very tall, but if anything, this would just make him easier to hit.  At a loss for what to do, we naturally  turned to the UX model – the only real standard we had for measured improvement.  We looked at ourselves carefully.

Our Information Architecture looked alright.  Well, at least as good as it could be for dodgeball.  As discussed in the last blog, there’s not a lot of information to organize.  Throw, dodge, don’t trip or hit people in the face.  We had picked up a few tips from the opposing team last week that would be useful (that is, besides reckless use of steroids and some sort of pact with the devil), but still the sum of our knowledge could be written legibly on a note card.

So next we turned to the issue of team usability.  I know you’re thinking that I probably conceived this metaphor without thinking it through all the way and now I’ve painted myself into a corner.  You’d argue that dodgeball teams aren’t websites, know matter how similar they may appear, and that there’s not a dodgeball-equivalent of usability.  And while I’d be apt to agree with you for the most part, there was at least one principle we could benefit from –

1 Pixel Off needed a redesign.

Actually, a design in general to be precise.  Sure, we had been full of gusto and youthful ambition, but up to this point, our attire, our whole brand had been as plain and lifeless as Jakob Nielsen’s website (if you understood that joke, please send us your resume). 

How were we expected to be taken seriously when half of our team was wearing sweatpants they had cut into shorts for some reason?  No matter how much we practiced, no matter how coordinated we became, we still looked like our team had been arbitrarily assembled by a dice roll.  We were laughable and unorganized.  We were putting the Enterprise Network to shame.

No more!  We would coordinate.  We would intimidate.  We would raise a fiery phoenix from the gym floor – a new team that we could be proud of.  We began work immediately.  We assembled comps and discussed typefaces.  We needed something bold, something that said “champions” (figuratively).  Champions do not need to explain themselves.  They do not have to explain to referees who is on their team.  Champions say “Everyone who looks dangerous.”

And champions we were as we took to the floor that evening, emblazoned with the most definitive graphical upgrade to ever grace a dodgeball field: (RIGHT)

Across from us stood a callow group of twenty-somethings with seemingly nothing in common but their innate desire to lose.  Their clothes ran the gambit from baggy sweats to some girl in jeans.  Jeans?  Was that a joke?  Their looks said it all – they weren’t ready for this.

This would be a good time to return to our previous discussion about User Experience.  Now, some people will tell you that Aesthetics is purely cosmetic and has no bearing on the actual effectiveness of a website.  After all, the web is an ugly place filled with half-hearted designs that seem to get by just fine.  You could easily keep the status quo with your eyes closed.  But this is exactly where sites with finesse really shine.  Aesthetic sites commands authority.

Just ask last’s week’s opposing team – they unknowingly volunteered themselves for a case study of whether a below average dodgeball team that dressed and acted like all-stars could wreak havoc on them.  Using a method derived from pervasive computing, we were able to keep an accurate measurement of each component of a dodgeball game, the same way we would a website.  I’m going to spare the details and just give you the chart for this one:

I hope that sums it up.  1PXOFF swept their second game, winning all the necessary four matches as well as three games afterwards to really rub it in.  I know I didn’t really work usability into this metaphor, but for the record, we watched some video footage of the game on the Tobii Eye Tracking machine, and were able to determine that 60% of users were immediately drawn to our awe-inspiring prowess, and 30% to our rugged good looks (10% just kept rewinding to the part where some kid on the other team got hit in the face).

So what awaits us?  Will our next opponent fall with the same ease?  Or is there another ONE SHOT ONE KILL lurking in our future?  It is too early to say (they haven’t posted this week’s roster yet), but no matter what is in store, we face each game with renewed confidence and more solid foundations.  We ask that you keep us in your hearts and minds as we forge endlessly onwards.

By Nick Anderson