Play With Me
Where Playing Meets Learning
My Role: UX researcher, UX/UI designer
Timeline: July2021 – September2021 (3 Months)
Tools Used: Figma, Miro, Google Forms (survey)
Overview
I used to work out in the park and enjoy the sound of children’s laughter, but since the pandemic, children can no longer go to parks in Iran. Children need to be around other children, they need to play with them and have social interactions to learn and grow. After reading more about the impact of pandemics on children, I understood that since the beginning of COVID-19, children’s depression and anxiety rates may have doubled around the world. The lack of peer interaction in children can cause a variety of problems, such as social fear and preference for solitude.
It was my design for the usability challenge day 2021 that won bronze. The purpose was to design a user-centered solution that is focused on the Design of our Online World.
The Process Used
This project was structured into 5 stages: define, research, empathize, ideation, and test.
Phase 1: Define
I asked myself: How can we make the boring time that children spend in solitude at their homes exciting and turn the quarantine time into an entertaining and enjoyable time for them by empowering them to play, learn, dance, and connect with their friends in creative and safe ways at their convenience.
Although children can use the many applications for virtual gathering, these applications are not designed for children whose needs are remarkably different from adults. Additionally, many of these applications do not offer a safe environment for young children and/or allow their parents to contribute to creating a safe and fun experience for their children.
Therefore work around the theme of the challenge and find the best answer to this question:
– How do we create trust in the online environment?
– What are the ethical implications of our designs?
– How do we design for accessibility, to ensure that everyone can use our designs?
Around the world, children’s depression and anxiety rates may have doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
Phase 2: User Research
In order to identify potential sources of additional information after analyzing the data, I decided to conduct a survey.
The survey was both in Farsi and English to gather some information about how parents define their children’s relation with technology in different parts of the world. In total, 25 people, including Iranians and parents from English-speaking countries, participated in this survey to compare many different aspects of the problem.
Participant Profile:
Parents of children ages 6-11 who need to be able to observe and control their children’s interactions with the app
Research Questions
- How much time do children spend interacting with technology and how does this time compare to their parents’ expectations
- What factors contribute to having an effective relationship with technology for children?
- How can technology help children learn and be creative?
Key insights:
- The majority (80%) of children have daily access to the internet that is mainly for recreation time.
- According to parents, playing games, watching videos, and listening to music are the top two activities that help children develop their language and listening skills.
- Children are eager to spend time playing with their friends; thus, they can boost their cooperation and creativity skills through group activities.
- Children with different learning styles may sometimes need tutors for better learning and to help them stay focused.
Affinity Diagram
I categorized the research data into an affinity map with 5 main categories as shown below. The affinity map provided me with a good high-level understanding of the problem and what steps I need to take to facilitate this engagement.
Phase3: Empathize
Persona
I created 3 personas based on the I created 3 personas based on the characteristics of the overall users to help me understand their goals, needs, and pain points which are based on the results of the survey and affinity map.
Goals:
1. Create a safe online application for children to easily use and interact with.
2. Improve the quality of their spare time and empower them to do more by leveraging the online world.
3. Provide parents with peace of mind by creating a safe environment for their children that can be monitored and controlled, as well as helping them have more time to work and focus on their well-being.
Phase 4: Ideation
Down selection:
I used to group similar concepts with insight from the survey. I narrowed it down to 3 main concepts in the down-selection process:
- Ethics: Empower parents to create, control, and manage children’s accounts.
- Integrity: Connect registered tutors with children based on their common interests.
- Trust: Allow children to enjoy different activities and learn on their own in a safe virtual environment.
Phase 5: Testing
Evaluate the mid-fidelity prototypes
Initially, I created mid-fidelity prototypes and tested with 5 participants who helped me resolve minor issues such as missing icons, information architecture ambiguity, and inefficient app flows.
Final prototype design
Then, I created this set of high-fidelity mockups for all screens in Figma.
- Account creation and management (parents)
Parents need to verify their mobile phone numbers to create a safe environment for their children and receive notifications about their activities in the app. Afterward, children can use the app with a username and password.
- Activity selection and attending virtual classes (children)
Children can add their friends and tutors. Furthermore, both parents and kids can create and schedule new events. However, when kids create an event, a permission request will be sent to their parents. Once their parents approve the request, the event will be scheduled.
Scheduling new events have multiple benefits for children: It helps them be more creative and take more responsibility while socializing with their peers.
- Managing online classes (registered tutors)
Tutors should submit their personal information and attach their CVs to verify their experience and credentials.
Things I’ve learned
- Creating a children’s app was certainly a big and heavy project because childrens’ needs are so different from adults and super unique to each of their personalities.
- I gained a better understanding of the UI principles when designing the app for the kids, such as selecting the font, defining the size of buttons, and choosing the color scheme.
- Using open-ended questions in a survey can be a powerful tool in design research.
The following image demonstrates how Play With Me aligns with the themes of the design for our online world challenge.
Retrospective
After submitting, I had more time to develop my ideas. So I started designing its desktop app for better performance. As a result, the final design may look and feel a bit different than the one that was submitted and won the 3rd place design award.
