Twitter Partners with YML for Product Innovation with 8-bit Game “Twitter Data Dash”

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By YML 

This piece was origionally released on YML

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Twitter recently announced the launch of its new privacy policy with an innovative online game called “Twitter Data Dash,” conceived and directed by YML, and designed by Momo Pixel. The interactive, 8-bit style game was built to educate and engage Twitter’s global audience of 330M users around the importance of one’s privacy on the platform.

YML’s innovative approach has so far earned press from The Washington Post, The Verge, TechCrunch, Adweek, and an array of other publications.

“Few topics are as relevant today as privacy for both businesses and consumers alike, which is why we leapt at the opportunity to partner with Twitter and disrupt the category,” shared Ashish Toshniwal, YML’s CEO and co-founder.

When Twitter first reached out to us, Twitter’s Privacy and Design team was underway rethinking and rewriting their privacy policy so it presented itself to people as something other than a massive, relentless sledgehammer of text. They began by thoughtfully breaking it down. Structurally. Visually. Linguistically crafting in a way that no longer required you to acquire a Harvard law degree to understand.

Twitter brought in YML to deliver product innovation, and in less than three months, “Twitter Data Dash” was born, built, and launched.

“We quickly gravitated toward the idea of turning privacy — something people go out of their way to avoid — into something you’d be genuinely excited to look at, interact with, and share,” added Craig Kind, the YML Creative Director who led the project.

Formatted for mobile and browser, we spearheaded “Twitter Data Dash” from definition right through to final artwork, development and design. A feat that included both customizing in-game artwork and regionalizing the experience for 9 major languages.

The game itself brings the Twitterverse to life in 8-bit style. From a building in the form of a hashtag to a boat under water with a mast featuring the Twitter bird icon to stylized Internet trolls, we dove deep into the nuance and culture of Twitter and reflected it in “Twitter Data Dash.”

The game pays meticulous detail to accessibility, globalization, and characters with diverse backgrounds. That narrative was woven into the foundation of the game when we partnered with Momo Pixel, a visionary 8-bit artist, game developer, and designer whose work has already changed the industry, using the medium to comment on the black female experience in “Hair Nah”.

Momo Pixel, the artist who designed the game, shared, “Games are a great way to facilitate learning, so when Twitter and YML approached me with the opportunity to build a video game that can help make their privacy policy easier to understand, it was a no-brainer — I absolutely said yes!”

“Twitter Data Dash” is hosted on a website built by YML’s engineering team, which facilitated the technical architecture across YML, Twitter and Momo Pixel over the three month project. YML consistently ran usability and testing, QA, responded to daily changes of the experience, and ensured the experience was consistently fast and reliable across platforms.

Twitter’s business objective — our goal— was to design an experience that tackled a massive global problem in a way nobody ever had before. Launched less than a month ago, the game—and the subject of privacy—have been featured in countless major publications worldwide, and played by millions of people around the globe. Game over. Job done.

See more YML work here. Or get in touch to discuss your next project.