Lex stands for "love" and "sex" — two essential yet often misunderstood aspects of teenage life.
This capstone project reimagines sex education through the lens of interactive design, presenting a web-based simulation game that empowers teenagers to explore healthy relationships and sexual boundaries in a safe, engaging, and judgment-free space.
Problem Insight
Why Sex Ed Falls Short
Teens are growing up with more information than ever before—yet still feel unprepared, unheard, and uncomfortable when it comes to sex education. Parents remain silent, schools only provide the most basic sex ed on bio part, however, the lessons that matter most often go unspoken. To uncover the real issues, we began by listening: to the systems, the platforms, and most importantly, the teens themselves.
Design Rationale
Rethinking the Medium
Our research uncovered a significant challenge: while 90% of teens learn about relationships through media, formal education often falls short. It felt disconnected, judgmental, or vague, struggling to engage teens with the nuanced emotional and practical aspects of healthy relationships. This highlighted the clear need for an alternative – something accessible and emotionally resonant.
We chose a game format to create a safe, low-pressure space for teens to explore complex emotions, test decisions, and reflect on outcomes. Unlike static lectures, a story-driven simulation makes learning active, emotional, and deeply personal. Our inspiration came from narrative games like Florence, which masterfully use simple interactions to explore profound emotional complexity. Similarly, we designed Lex to invite engagement not just with information, but with feelings, decisions, and consequences – transforming abstract concepts like boundaries and mutuality into tangible, lived experiences. This made learning about sensitive topics private and emotionally resonant.
To enhance player comfort and engagement, we introduced Selena, a relatable main character. She serves as the user's narrative lens, offering crucial emotional distance compared to first-person scenarios which could feel uncomfortable. Selena's choices mirror real dilemmas teens face, enabling users to observe, decide, and learn without judgment. This narrative approach effectively fosters self-reflection through observation.
We deliberately built Lex as a web-based simulation game to ensure maximum accessibility across devices, especially for students limited by app downloads. This browser format offered key advantages:
- Rapid Prototyping: Allowed us to quickly iterate and test concepts using tools like Monogatari.
- Ease of Development: Embedding text-based decision flows was straightforward and efficient.
- Prioritized Privacy: Crucially, a web-based platform supported our commitment to privacy and anonymity, paramount concerns for teens exploring sensitive topics, as identified in our user interviews.
Experience Lex
Core Gameplay Features
What Lex Changes
Rethinking Sex Ed Through Interactive Design
Lex is not just a game — it's a proposal for how we talk to teens about intimacy, respect, and self-awareness. Through this project, I have learned how interactive design can make emotionally sensitive topics feel safe and engaging.
It demonstrates the profound potential of adaptive narrative systems to tailor sensitive conversations, highlights the critical importance of identity-sensitive scenarios for fostering genuine self-awareness, and serves as a compelling model for integrating interactive design into digital school curriculums to address complex, emotionally resonant topics.