Mo Cardamone
(she/her)

SUMMONR

SUMMONR is an answer to how design might facilitate catharsis and connections between role-playing gamers (RPGers) as well as a way to encourage non-gamers to play.  

As it stands, it’s often challenging to create and/or join a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign due to insufficient means for players to find one another, which is a problem for both expert and novice gamers. Thousands of people log in to the subreddit page for finding players and campaigns each week, but it’s a flawed system that’s inefficient and confusing. SUMMONR simplifies this process by providing a system that connects people based on personal preferences, similar styles of gameplay, and shared interests. By investigating and analyzing human behavior at the level of primary research, my users and I have uncovered a flexible, friendly process for beginning or continuing your journey with D&D. 

By researching the user and understanding their specific desires and pain points, collaborative solutions come to fruition. Don Norman’s approach to empathic human-centered design, famously outlined in The Design of Everyday Things, [1] lit the way for collaborative problem solving with users at the center of the solution. Interviews and co-design sessions brought this app to life, specifically in SUMMONR’s information architecture and features as well as the preferred look and feel of the app’s interface.  

When we engage in play, we become more human – we form connections better, relieve burnout, and find joy in what might otherwise be mundane.[2] Engaging with SUMMONR can assist adults in connecting with this sense of play again in an easy, welcoming environment that promotes inspired and authentic engagement. 

The four segments of this work represent the user experience process chronologically: discover, define, design, and develop.[3] The three framed data visualizations (personas, user journey, and information architecture, wireframes, and final screens) detail the preliminary efforts of creating a mobile app while the monitor which represents the app itself is the culmination of the aforementioned research and design. 

1.  Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, (Basic Books, 2021), 224. 

2.  Stuart L. Brown,, and Christopher C. Vaughan. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.( New York, NY: Avery, 2010), 434.   

3. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 220-221.