Thoughts on Freerice.com

Freerice.com is a non-governmental donation based website with a twist. Instead of being traditional donation sites where it’s just a message, target goals and asking people of money, Freerice incorporates competitive educational gaming feature to promote their cause. In short, Freerice lets people play, learn, receive and give.

Basically, what this website does is letting any visitor play MCQ based answering game, and for each correct answer it donates specific amount of rice grain to the affected people around the world through their World Food Program.

User Friendliness:

The user friendliness of this site is the first noticeable feature other than the game itself. The website is simple, and easy to navigate. There is no page-inside-page so no visitor will feel lost and each page can direct user to any other page back and forth. Also, the site’s homepage immediately introduces any visitor with the game (with more or less easy questions so the visitor does not get bothered or irritated) and gradually the visitor can understand what is actually going on. So, in the case, Freerice is very easy to understand for users of any age.

Motivation:

The website wants people to learn but it’s not their primary objective. So, to motivate players, Freerice is very forgiving with their questions at first. Moreover, when a player gives a correct answer, it shows the message “correct” in green color and also shows a bowl with grains of rice to let the players feel that they are actually contributing something important. So, the motivation here is mostly self-generated meaning players will be compelled to play more and donate more. Freerice also has a difficulty system in their game which means if a player feels like the questions are too easy, he or she can also change the difficulty level and get more difficult questions with unusual synonyms or phrases. Here the motivation works in two ways. One, player will have an urge to complete the tasks with minor failures at best and two, the complex words will help enrich their vocabulary since they are learning not just by studying but by playing which helps memorizing and rememberinganything more accurately. Another thing to note here is that when a player gives a wrong answer, the site doesn’t show the message “incorrect” in red color instead it uses normal black. Because if they did it in red, any player would feel very demotivated to play a word-game on a donation based website which is very harmless and casual in itself. That’s one plus point to Freerice’s motivation practice.

Interaction:
The site is not really engaging I would assume. I mean it’s difficult to say since there are no second ways I can donate anything here other than playing MCQ which already has preset questions and answering messages. There is a tab of FAQ but I didn’t see any user actively asking question and the website answering any. So, here the site feels less interactive with their visitors. There are no forums inside where people can share their experiences or activities with each other regarding the website. So, at times visitors can feel a bit lonely here just playing by themselves. There’s a separate tab for “contacting” them but the options are generic such as “you can also find us on facebook”, “You can find other information in our FAQs section” and a link which gives a chance to actually donating something in their main website.

Learning Outcomes:

The learning outcomes arenot overwhelming but it is indeed adequate. We can learn new vocabularies or just revise the ones we already know. The site does give proper instruction on how to answer questions so it’s quite informative in that regard. Plus, the challenge gradually grows when there are consecutive correct answers but also when there’s an incorrect answer, the difficulty is reversed and it provides easier questions. Also, after a few questions, it lets you play the one you incorrectly answered earlier. So, Freerice here makes sure that the player learns from their mistakes and remembers the correct one. For a website with limited capabilities,this “Trial and Error” process is an excellent system to learn new things which Freerice uses perfectly. Among the many subjects, Freerice also included SAT based tests. This will help advanced learners to put their knowledge to practice while donating simultaneously.

Limitation:

Needless to say, the website has some limitations. As mentioned earlier, Freerice lacks interactive feature. Then again, this site is just another experimental program among 100 other WFP programs so expecting a full-fledged controller is kind of farfetched. But still, this site uses the gaming option as the only way to donate so an interactive feature would have helped them to survey and collect information on players feedback. Also, only using the MCQ system is another limitation on learning. Having only one system makes the website prone to losing the “Toy Effect” which is a major challenge for Freerice but instead of point and click text-based games this website could have included more variant of leaning system. Examples of such variants are using image to identify words or phrases, fill in the gaps, re-ordering slightly complex sentences, or even for enhancing difficulties all the tests but with timer. This can drastically change the motivation factor of competitive gaming and enhance learning experience with renewed “Toy effects” as players will be able to change between various systems.

Suggestions for the Developer:

For suggestions, the website can definitely add a more interactive feature - if not for this site, maybe for something in the future.However, there is one hyperlink which takes the players to do a survey based on the experience they had. They could use this information to implement more features, add new games to enhance the learning experience for players.I mentioned earlier that this site lacks “fill in the gaps” system. It indeed has one but only for SAT based questions which can be a bit too difficult for any normal players. So, if the developers aim to educate people through this program, they can definitely come up with better alternatives than what is already good right now.

The site’s main feature is accessible to anyone but Freerice also allows users to register to have some extra facilities. For example, a registered user can track progress of playtime, what has been earned and what amount has been donated. This is purely for self-pleasure and a boost in self-esteem. Also, registered users can create groups in which there can be a whole community playing and donating under a single name. So, through this a School, College or University students can form a singular group and act as one body to donate together. This also gives the window of competition with other groups, further enforcing the “Toy Effect”.

Freerice introduces a symbiotic relation between competitive gaming, academic learning and promoting a social cause. Rarely we see such hybrids, and in this age of technology where every aspect, every system is slowly merging, this kind of initiative is obviously a new door for entrepreneurs who wants to teach children or adults through online materials.