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This project explored a more positive learning atmosphere to give school-age children a chance of developing self-learning and self-thinking ability.
Ovreview
Nowadays, children's smart products are tools for parents to monitor and teach them. Without parents’ accompany, school-age children lose the ability of self-learning and thinking independently while being supervised by smart products. Based on this phenomenon, I developed a new platform to explore the more balance relationship among children, parents, and smart products. My Role
This is a mechanism I designed which interacts in three aspects: children, a smart desk, parents' mobile app. The algorithm, intelligent and interactive experience in this mechanism all have the same goal: improve children’s self-finding and self-thinking ability, enhance the intimacy and interaction between parents and children. These new features give families a chance to develop a new relationship with more freedom but with appropriate monitoring in the same time.
Research
Secondary Research
Children now live in the smart era and face smart devices every day. However, smart devices are designed from the perspective of parents in order to achieve better monitoring and control. The using experience is not the most helpful for children. To better understand the current situation of existing children's smart devices, I researched several mainstream products, including the experience of children and parents while using and their feedbacks after use.
After researching, I found that in a fast-paced life, the existing children smart devices are designed for parents to monitor children more conveniently, missing the process of finding and thinking on children's own. Children's self-learning ability and the intimacy between parent and child have been lost.
User Research
I conducted more in-depth research based on current family. I find that in a fast-paced life, parents often neglect to manage and accompany their children, and many children lack the ability to learn and explore independently.
It just so happens that school age is a crucial period for children to develop their self-learning habits and skills.
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I found that almost no children can concentrate on their own affairs during self-study after I went to a kindergarten take the observation.![]()
According to my observations, I also found that once children have the ability to think independently, they can be very focused although without accompany.
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Supervision is necessary, but at the same time, children should be given space and freedom to grow up under the guidience.
How to improve the self-finding and self-thinking ability of school-age children, let them develop good learning habits and improve the intimacy between parents and children?
Ideation
User Journey Map
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Design Highlight
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Prototype
Idea Sketching & Paper User Testing
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This is my preliminary design idea. The whole process is divided into upload mode, question mode, and wish mode. The feasibility of functions needs to be further investigated and verified.
In order to determine the appropriate way to interact with children, I interviewed my target users if they can understand the whole process and observed their reactions to different media and ways of conveying information. I found they are very sensitive to sound. Different oriented behaviors can be made according to different sounds.
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VOICE HINT & SOUND EFFECT
Prototyping
Process Flow Diagram
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1st Physical Making
Based on the process flow diagram I made, I set up the physical desk connected with my laptop and Arduino wire.
I coded the program and made the audio, too. I chose to use the Arduino breadboard and power supply to build my entire circuit. In terms of the sensor, I use a photoresistor to sense every time I pull out the pen to determine whether to wake up the system. I connected three buttons totally, and I coded their corresponding functions in the Arduino application. In addition, I used Processing to connect and wrote a series of connection and instruction codes to control voice input and function output.
1st User Testing & Iteration
I invited my target audience to use my product and explained the entire using process for them, observing their reactions and behaviors.
I found there are many concerns in my asking mode and wishing mode, and I need to improve them in the next iteration.
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2nd Physical Making
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2nd User Testing & Iteration
For this round user testing, I invited the same target audience as the last round. An AI Q&A mechanism is integrated and controlled remotely by me. I observed their behaviors, reactions and questions asked. Compared with the using experience last time, some of them gave me new feedbacks.
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From this time’s results, I found the entire mechanism has become better comparing with the last version, and my users gave me some opinions on the mobile app flow, intelligent mechanism and button position.
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After doing this round user testing, I made some improvements based on the feedback I got and prepared for my final outcome.
I added the child's knowledge level input, and parents can edit ranking and grade. This makes the detection and answering in the question mode more accurate.
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Besides, I improved the recognition of the press system. If the system does not detect any behavior after pressing it for 10 seconds, the command is invalid by default.
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I also improved the wishing mode. Parents enter the correct rate of yesterday's homework on their mobile phone to check whether the set correct rate is reached. If it can reach, the kid will advance one step on the progress map. If not, the position will not move. Parents can set how many grids to reach the goal point. If the kid advance to the goal point, the reward system will be triggered. So that children have a sense of anticipation in every day homework doing.
Visual System
Colors
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Typography
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Tab Bar
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Iconography
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Design
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After making the 3D sketching and rendering, I implemented them in the real physical product according to the draft. The main part is made by cutting acrylic boards. For buttons, I used UV printing to make the icons appear on them.
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Future Development
Reflection
I learned a lot from this project. Not only did I design a product, but through a series of studies on school-age children and their parents, I paid more attention to the social issues of the parent-child relationship at this critical stage of growth. I think that from a long-term development perspective, this problem will become more and more prominent.
The society of Generation Alpha is different from the past. This is a technology era. They are in an environment surrounded by artificial intelligence, and their demand for technology is getting higher. This is the conflict of the growth experience and opinions of the two generations. Parents and Generation Alpha need to adapt to each other. I will focus more on combining social issues with my research and design to do projects with more social responsibility.
