Co-designing the future of technology for children with children

My Role

UX Research Assistant

About

The Problem

The Solution

The Scope

Led by

Jason Yip (Director), Caroline Pitt (Lead Researcher)

Client(s)

Amazon Kids & Families, GBH/PBS Kids

Timeline

June 2023 - Present

KidsTeam UW, an inter-generational research and design team at the University of Washington, collaborates with children ages 6-11 as long-term design partners in various projects. In partnership with corporations, local organizations, and university faculty, KidsTeam UW actively shapes the future of technology for children with children.

Children are domain experts in childhood. Yet, they are often limited to passive roles in traditional product research, missing the opportunity to directly contribute to the design process of products intended for them.

Through KidsTeam, we empower children as equal stakeholders throughout the entire design process, allowing them to actively shape and contribute to products that enhance their worlds. We make this possible through equitable, participatory design practices that make articulating design ideas accessible for children.

KidsTeam UW kicks off with a week-long summer camp where adults and children engage in bonding activities and collaborate on multiple projects. During the school year, we meet every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon to work through ongoing projects and one-off, exploratory research sessions across a variety of topics.

#participatory-design

#rapid-ideation

#physical-prototying

Check out some of our work below! 👇

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Check out some of our work below! 👇 〰️

Amazon Kids & Families

How might voice assistants help children work through complex chores?

  • Previous research has shown that static chore trackers can quickly feel “old” and “stale”, eventually becoming altogether unused by children.

    While voice assistants are primarily used among individuals 18 years and older, emerging research is exploring how voice assistants may facilitate children’s education, routines, and habit-building.

  • Partnering with Jessica, a Sr. UX Designer at Amazon Kids & Families, we were asked to explore how voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa might facilitate children’s completion of “complex” or multi-step chores.

    Additionally:

    What are the motivations to clean and do chores among children ages 7-9 years old?

    How might voice assistants help children do outside chores (ex: raking leaves) when the child likely won’t have direct access to the voice assistant device?

  • 1) Provide children with greater autonomy in completing their chores

    2) Make the act of completing chores more fun and engaging for children

    3) Prompt positive emotion/association toward voice assistants

Participatory Design Techniques

🧠 Brainstorming

After breaking out into smaller teams of adult and child design partners, we brainstormed a simple list of chores we liked to do and chores we didn’t like to do. This allowed us to probe our design partners’ perceptions of specific chores and uncover their motivations and preferences for different chores.

We were then tasked to select one chore we did not like to do and think of ways a voice assistant could make that chore easier and/or more fun to complete.

👥 Bodystorming & Skit Presentation

To bring our ideas to life, we worked together to “bodystorm” our design concept. This allowed us to work through our selected chore scenario and identify the features, capabilities, and design requirements needed for our design concept to be successful. We then helped our child design partners create the necessary props using hand-drawn illustrations and printed images to communicate our final design idea in the form of a skit presentation.

My Group’s Solution

Scenario: Cleaning the Bathroom

Concept: Gamifying bathroom cleaning using visual sensors, music, and timers!

Features: Our voice assistant would…

  • Have visual scanning capabilities that can assess how clean the bathroom is

  • Help point out physical areas of the bathroom to focus on (ex: “there is mold on the floor”, “the bathroom mirror is dirty”, “the sink is clogged”, etc.)

  • Provide before and after photos along with a grade and feedback of how well the child completed the chore

  • Play music and set a timer to set the parameters of the cleaning game (ex: “I will play music for xx minutes while you clean. When the music is done, we will grade how clean your bathroom is!”)

Outcome & Impact

Overall, our design solution was well received by other child and adult design partners in KidsTeam, as well as Jessica, our main stakeholder for this research session. She particularly liked our solution’s feature of capturing before and after photos and assigning a grade for cleanliness, as doing so can help establish norms for defining a “clean” bathroom or “completed” chore for both children and parents.

Additionally, our concept held many commonalities with other groups’ ideas, namely through the gamification approach as well as fun-enhancing features like music and a scoring system/progress tracker to facilitate children's sense of achievement and autonomy.

With clear, common themes identified from our exploratory research session, our initial concepts and findings will be used to inform future research sessions and explore children’s applications for Amazon Alexa.

GBH | PBS Kids

How might we facilitate collaboration and shared learning for young children through online games?

  • Team Hamster! is an interactive digital series of animated stories and educational games developed by GBH Children’s Media Team and made available through PBS Kids. Geared toward children ages 4-8, Team Hamster! teaches kids engineering skills, creative problem-solving, and resourcefulness.

  • Partnering with researchers and designers from the GBH Children’s Media Team, we were asked to evaluate the gameplay and visual design to improve existing game experience and inform the development of future concepts.

  • 1) Engage child design partners to identify likes and dislikes across gameplay and design.

    2) Brainstorm design ideas to improve game experience for target audience of 5-7 year old children.

    3) Explore features and capabilities to encourage collaborative play and shared learning.

Additional details coming soon.

Participatory Design Techniques

💭 Likes, Dislikes, & Design Ideas

After breaking out into smaller teams, we observed our child design partners as they played through each game and probed them with questions regarding their playing experience. This allowed us to uncover their preferences and follow up on changes they would make to the game. We then recorded each “like”, “dislike”, and “design idea” on separate sticky notes to be analyzed through affinity mapping with other groups’ notes.

🗒️ Big Paper

We then provided our child design partners with large sheets of paper and markers to illustrate their design ideas. Some children opted to draw additional features or changes they’d like to see in the existing game, while others worked on exploring different versions of capabilities that would allow for multiplayer competition or collaboration.