UX Design: Designing User
Interfaces for Kids
Table of Contents.
Summary.
For our final project, our professor tasked us with designing the front end for a Victorian literature database. He noted that browsing should be considered the most important feature, but not browsing of the books --- browsing of the metadata.
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Role: UX Designer
Team: Mia Spencer, Vanesa Ayon, Miraj Mehta, Loan Tran
Methods/Skills: comparative analysis, wireframing, design system creation, design ideation, thematic analysis
Scope: February - May 2022
Goal: To do research and then create a detailed design memo for an educational technology for children
My Contribution
Our research contributions were split equally and I will explain them throughout. For the lo fi prototype, I worked on the world building and the learning island concepts.
Research.
Before we began our research, we brainstormed some initial ideas for possible technologies, then extrapolated and agreed upon the common vision and goals we wanted to put our focus into. We were put into a group together because we were all interested in creating technology that focused on reading and writing but wanted to make sure that we were on the same page before we began research. We then began our research which included interviews with both children and teachers, a comparative analysis, and a literature review.
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Research Included:
interviews
comparative analysis
literature review
Initial Ideas, Goals, & Objectives
Interviews.
In total, we interviewed two teachers and four children in order to figure out what teachers thought would be most helpful for students and to find out from students what they most enjoyed. We then put all of our insights in a spreadsheet and did a thematic analysis to synthesize and analyze our findings.
Interview Spreadsheet
Interview Findings by Theme
Refined Interview Findings
Comparative Analysis.
We also did a comparative analysis and each picked already existing educational technologies to analyze and put our findings into an affinity diagram to help us figure out what features are most necessary or what features we think they are missing.
Literature Review.
We then brainstormed what information we felt like we were still missing after those rounds of research and picked four topics we felt like we needed answers to. These were mostly focused on general information about how children learn and at what age certain learning milestones fall. Each person then picked one of those topics and did a literature review on those topics. Our findings helped narrow our focus for our design ideas (what age group to focus on, which disabilities to discuss, how kids learn to write, etc).
Problem Definition.
As a teacher, I would like an educational technology that (given that students are falling behind in ELAR levels) keeps children engaged and provides genuine learning opportunities.
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How might we…
Engage students to help them enhance their writing & storytelling skills for independent and collaborative growth?
Design Ideation.
We first refined our research to come up with a list of student and teacher interests we wanted to include in our technology. We drew inspiration from the existing technology we reviewed and the moodboard we created to help us think of what aesthetic would be most engaging to children. We created an affinity diagram to decide what elements we should include and then came together to pick ideas from our concepts/paths that we all like in order to ideate an MVP wireframe path that will be designed for our presentation and design memo.
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Overview of Digital Technology: A space for students to create and tell stories, primarily through writing, but also allowing/encouraging other mediums and creative outlets: video, drawing, etc.
Learning Objectives: Fundamentals of creative writing, exposure to multiple genres: poetry, fiction, flash fiction, non-fiction, play, etc.
Age: 5th grade (most of our research is based here); can include further suggestions for other age groups in memo, but designs will be focused on age group
Digital Technology: Laptop with flexibility into touch-based interface
Environment/Circumstances: Classroom, for individual writing and group collaboration
Class “home base” > individual accounts
Control/Access for teachers/students
Design Elements/Features: individual writing prompts/activities; creative class/group collaboration activities; reading content based on interests; platform for kids to write, but have access to teacher collaboration for help on their personal and class projects; pop-up “tips/suggestions” to improve or add on to the story; different options/prompts pending on the initial purpose of starting to create “do you want to create alone; with friends; etc.”
Student-side (primary)
Teacher-side
Overview of Design Concept
Prototype.
We split up different tasks for the prototype creation. I focused on adding accessibility notes, nearby attractions, accessibility reviews, and an accessibility rating filter.
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Avatar creation
World building concepts
Notebook creation
Origin story
Learning island
Overview of Features
Accessibility and reading integration
Student-teacher opps
Reward system
Future Feature Opportunities
Customizations to increase feelings of identification and ownership:
Offer as many options as possible so everyone feels represented
Physical/inclusive traits and different age options
Live avatar with animations, expressions and sounds
Illustrations appropriate for 7-12 age but extended ranges as well so more users can have the same experience
Ex. Snapchat bitmojis and Apple Animojis.
Avatar Creation
Illustration style
Flexible and expandable map
Zoom in and out
Contrast on icon worlds and icon world illustrations
Color & style map according to world themes and characters
Can create their own world
Easy to use, navigate, add, travel
World Building Concepts
The digital notebook is a space for exploration and there is no right or wrong way to use it.
Customizations:
Every notebook has a unique personality
Each comes with an editing toolbar
Page style (color, lined/unlined, etc.)
Stickers for decoration and brainstorming
Notebook Creation
Offers opportunities for interaction
Characters present open writing prompts to the user
The user is never forced to tell a story; the exception may be a teacher’s assignment
User can explore worlds, objects, and characters for ideas and inspiration
Writing stories can unlock prizes, such as badges, journals, worlds, etc.
If the user gets stuck, they can go to Learning Island
Origin Story
Teachers create account & avatar to assign projects & provide students with feedback
Teacher access code for class accounts
Professor Wordsmith: 24/7 writing tutor that gives writing tips/lessons and serves as a guide for Story Traveler’s
Available to users not part of class account
Learning Island
Reflections.
What i learned
Thematic coding/analysis
How to collaborate with people who have strong opinions on design
To be efficient and fair, we made a lot of decisions by voting (not allowed to vote for our own ideas/designs)
On the same note, we spent a lot of time on the brainstorming stage because we each had a lot of ideas and our oral brainstorming sessions could last for hours
We realized our most efficient form of brainstorming was collaborating through figjam where we were forced to distill our ideas into short, easily digestible notes
What could be improved
We would have liked to do some concept validation with kids and teachers from our target audience
I think the amount of features we included might be too many for a minimum viable product (MVP)
Perhaps, for the initial prototypes, our concept validation would help us figure out which features to focus on
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