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Making a learning game using Miro

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Asthma + Lung UK is a UK charity looking after the nation's lungs. Together, we're making sure that one day everyone will breathe clean air with healthy lungs.

Use this Guide if you want to develop interactive training using an online board game format in Miro. This approach can help make training more memorable and effective by allowing participants to apply concepts they have learned in a safe environment.

Jump to steps
Key software:
Miro
How they set it up:
Followed simple on screen instructions
Setup costs:
Staff time. Miro subscription.
Ongoing costs:
Miro subscription.
Guide in use since:
May 2024

Steps to making a learning game using Miro

Spend some time working out what skills and knowledge people need in their roles and what your training should aim to achieve. Think about specific scenarios or decisions that staff struggle with in their daily work. You might notice specific skills gaps yourself, or talk to colleagues about their needs and interests.

Decide exactly what the training should accomplish. You can write learning objectives for people taking part to show clearly what new skills or knowledge they will gain.

Asthma + Lung UK’s vision is for a world where everyone has healthy lungs.

They noticed that smaller projects sometimes struggled without dedicated project management support, and that they could support staff better by offering skills training in project management and design thinking.

Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that focuses on understanding and meeting people's needs. The goal is to create solutions that work well for the people who will use them. It's about thinking creatively, trying things out quickly, and improving based on what you learn.

An online board game is a flexible, accessible, and engaging training format. But it’s not the only one!

Try to come up with a few ideas for how you could run a training session which would meet people’s needs and your training goals. Look for creative ideas and approaches and think about different formats.

You could apply design thinking and take an iterative approach to developing your training. Iterative means doing something more than once and changing it each time to make it better.

  1. Start small, with a basic version of the training

  2. Try it out with a few people

  3. Get feedback on what worked and didn’t work

  4. Improve the training based on what you learned

  5. Test the new version, get more feedback, and make more changes.

Asthma + Lung UK initially designed a full-day in-person training session as a pilot. The day was split into two parts:

  1. Morning session focused on teaching project management and service design approaches and techniques.

  2. Afternoon session focused on an experiential challenge where participants were asked to organise refreshments for the group, putting what they had learned in the morning into practice.

For the refreshments exercise participants were split into two teams: one responsible for food, the other for drinks. Each team was given a budget and a deadline and encouraged to be creative and explore beyond the typical charity training day spread of sandwiches and coffee.

The exercise aimed to simulate a "traditional" way of working versus using design thinking. However, the trainer found that the teams took a traditional approach to the task and the results were similar to every other training day.

The pilot revealed some important insights:

  • They didn't provide enough reference materials for participants to use during the exercise, which meant it became too focused on how much they could remember.

  • Participants didn't feel as motivated by the refreshments task as expected. Feedback showed participants wanted a more work-relevant challenge.

  • The exercise also revealed some common cultural aspects of working in a charity:

    • strong desire to use resources carefully

    • reluctance to take risks or be seen as frivolous with charity funds

    • unused to adopting an experimental approach.

If you decide to create a learning game there are some things to think about:

  • How the game will create learning opportunities for players

  • Whether the game be competitive or collaborative

  • Make it fun but not too hard. The game should be tricky enough to enjoy, but not so tricky that people get frustrated.

  • Add an element of chance to make it feel more like real life.

  • Include ways to teach good habits while people play.

  • Try to make the game fun to play more than once, with different things happening each time.

If you ran a pilot training, look at the feedback people gave and what you learned.

Asthma + Lung UK used insights from their pilot training day to inform the next version of their training. In the afternoon session task they wanted to provide:

  • experiential learning - giving people a chance to put their new skills into practice

  • more structure and guidance

  • a scenario that was more relevant to participant’s daily roles

  • a clearer framework to help people to apply what they had learned

  • easily accessible supporting materials and information

  • a scoring system reflecting real-world trade-offs between time, budget, and quality

  • a safe space for experimentation without real-world consequences.

They realised that an online board game format would help them deliver all of these in a way that was also fun and creative. After an initial brainstorm they created a paper prototype of the game to test the idea.

The game focuses on a scenario which is relevant to every participant’s work; teams must plan and deliver a project to celebrate reaching a major organisational goal. The game design includes:

  • a planning phase and implementation phase

  • resource management (time and budget)

  • "quality points" as a scoring mechanism

  • random events to simulate real-world challenges

  • information about different aspects of project management and design thinking for people to refer to within the game.

Use Miro's features to create your game board and components. You could include:

  • frames for different game sections

  • colourful shapes and icons for visual interest

  • sticky notes for cards or game pieces

  • links between frames for navigation and to offer extra information or context.

Think about how people will move elements around on the game board. Use Miro’s lock feature to avoid people accidentally selecting the wrong thing, and group elements together to make moveable cards with text and images.

Asthma + Lung UK's game board includes:

  • a main game board with spaces for each project phase

  • separate frames for research activities, ideation, and testing

  • a scoreboard for tracking budget, time, and quality points

  • cards for different project options and random events

  • sticky notes with instructions and hints based on frequently asked questions

  • links to further information about different activities

  • a section for players to review their projects and give feedback on the game

They also created a short video introduction to the game.

Play through your game multiple times with different groups to identify any issues.

  • Is the difficulty level appropriate?

  • Are the instructions clear?

  • Is it engaging for participants?

  • Is it accessible for everyone?

  • Does it meet the learning needs of participants?

  • Does it meet your training goals?

Gather feedback from your players, and make adjustments.

Asthma + Lung UK’s game went through a few different iterations, adjusting elements like:

  • creating a dedicated section of the game board to highlight the importance of research and planning

  • adding more guidance and hints for players

  • tidying up the user interface in Miro for easier navigation.

The team have had very positive feedback on the game from players and after testing they are planning to roll out the training - including the learning game - across the charity.

Further information