Now is the time to decide what your game will actually contain. Think about you require to make this function. Everyone around you is starting to get ideas, and some of them may even have a mental image of what the game should look like. You need to harness this creative energy and channel it into a productive process. You already have an agreement on the goals and audience, and you will be used to working with each other now. The point of this part of the information-architecture process is to decide on the pieces for creating the structure and organization of the game. These pieces represent the functionality. In order to harness all the ideas about how the game will work, create a list of the content and functional requirements. Hmmm...sounds complex...basically I mean, start deciding what exactly are you going to do, and creating a list. Step 1: Identify Content and Functional Requirements
As an example, say you were making a game that started with an introduction screen. The introduction screen had instructions and when you had read the instructions you clicked on a red box to start the game. These would be your content elements: Opening Screen Text Red Box These would be your functional requirements. Red box must activate game start when clicked.
When you have developed your list, have everyone review this list in order to decide how important each piece of content is. Revise your list if you need to. You now have what's called a 'content inventory'. Using the content inventory, revise your list of functional requirements. You should end up with group agreement about what, specifically will be in your site in terms of content and functionality. You are now ready for Lesson 14
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