Take a look at 'Gorm the Zop,' the confusing video game that Google uses to teach employees how hard smartphones and the internet can be for first-time users in the developing world (GOOGL)

Sundar Pichai speaks during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco

Google's Next Billion Users initiative focuses on building products for emerging markets.
To illustrate how confusing a smartphone can be for a first-time user, Google made a video game where players try to decipher the meaning.
It's called 'Gorm the Zop'.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Gorm the Zop. That's your objective.

And if you have no idea what it means, don't worry. You're not supposed to.

'Gorm the Zop' is a game played by employees inside Google Next Billion Users team to understand just how overwhelming a smartphone interface can be for a first-time user.

Google's Next Billion Users, an initiative launched after Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google in 2015, works on building products and services for emerging markets.

NBU, which has around 300 core employees and hundreds more across Google's product teams, has been operating in India, Indonesia and Brazil for several years. It also recently started working in Mexico and Nigeria.

Projects range from mobile payments – it's found huge success with the Google Pay app in India – to stripping down Google's most popular apps to run on lower-powered smartphones.

NBU's team also works on user interfaces and tried to understand how certain iconography does or doesn't translate around the world.

To help employees understand why this is important, the team leaders will have employees play the 'Gorm the Zop' game, where they must tap and swipe their way through levels to complete objectives.

It's difficult and confusing, and that's the point.

Google internal game screenshot

"What we were trying to show was, how do we simulate for someone what a new internet user experiences or feels the first time they use a phone?" said Josh Woodward.

"If you give someone an interface where the symbols don't make any sense at all, how do they navigate it and what do they do?"

And as Googlers invariably mess up along the way, they'll continue to be scolded by messages until they finally crack the code.

"We usually call people up in front in all-hands meetings and have them play it in front of their peers," said Woodward.

With the NBU team inside Mountain View unable to travel abroad due to the pandemic, Woodward said they've been building and using more prototype apps to teach employees how to think like a new internet user.

As for Gorm the Zop, Woodward said it is possible to complete the "game" but it's really designed to make a point: just because someone in Mountain View can switch on a smartphone and instantly understand the interface, doesn't mean someone half way across the world will, too.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why YETI coolers are so expensive