My idea for a quiz was to relate the five colors in Magic: The Gathering to different styles of leadership. Every color in magic has an identity not just for gameplay mechanics but also thematic flavor. White is associated with government, using rules and laws to keep peace and order. So, for leadership I based the questions on a person who takes charge to create a structure and order to the group. Blue pursues knowledge and logic to solve problems. As a leader I created questions about making plans and strategies to approach the situation. Black was tricky as it has a heavy negative connotation. I attempted to keep the portrayal neutral with a desire for success and being unafraid to take risks. I still feel like I could have improved on making the choices feel positive. Red is quick to action and values freedom. This type of leader prefers setting a positive example through their own actions instead of ordering others what to do. Green was another challenging color as its desire for peace is like white. I decided to put in emphasis on a mediator who makes sure all the members of the group get along.
Of the ten responses I collected, counting ties as both colors, there was: one white, two blue, one black, two red, and six green leaders. The first and last white options were never picked, possibly because they were too generic compared to the others. The third and fourth blue options were never picked, maybe because they were too complex compared to the simpler alternatives. The second and fourth black answers weren’t selected and likely were seen as too selfish and mean. Every single red option was selected at least once and is probably the best written options that I wrote. Strangely the first green option, studying as a group, was never picked. The third and fourth green options were picked way too often and caused way more people to be green leaders than any other. These answers are probably seen as the nicest or most effective of all the options available. The first change I would make to my quiz is make the black options more appealing. Then I would give a few of the shared qualities of green to white.
Despite the problems of balance in responses people were generally satisfied with their results. Not all of them were familiar with the different colors in Magic so their response was based on the summary I wrote. I personally agree with most if not all the results as well. This could just mean the sample of people who took the quiz were biased towards green. Also, the five colors aren’t designed to equally represent all people so something like black probably is naturally less common than others. A flaw with the BuzzFeed website is ties always get the same result and there is no indication of how much you match with the other options. If I had designed a more advanced quiz, I could have included all ten color pairs as answers instead of just the five one color options. The issue of certain colors being less common in real people would only because worse though. I doubt many people would fit into green black or red black for example. Overall learning about the design philosophy for colors in Magic and creating leader types for them was an interesting assignment.