Project Overview
The Product:
A mobile application to guide children in recognizing and regulating their emotions through engaging, and easy exercises.
The Problem:
Children need to learn from both their parents and teachers to become more aware of their emotions. Parents and mentors need to learn how to better understand their children's emotions while also learning to teach their children about their emotions.
My Role:
-
UX Designer
The Goal:
The goal of this project was to create an application that helps children learn about their emotions so they can become more emotionally intelligent and help them build strong coping habits. Additionally it will help parents easily identify and prevent any emotional struggles their child may have.
Understanding the user
User research
Conducting research played a significant role when making decisions for our application. I created a survey of 3 questions to better understand emotional challenges children go through, and how the parent or mentor handles these emotions. To not overwhelm myself, I decided to only interview parents and mentors with children ages 5-7. Interviewed a total of 100 parents.
Interview Questions and Answers
Do you share your feelings/emotions with your children?
- 100 % of parents interviewed said "yes", they share their feelings/emotions with their child.
What is the biggest emotional challenge your child is facing right now?
- 42 % of parents stated that their child has a hard time putting their feelings into words. 30 % of parents said their child's biggest emotional challenge is criticism, and 28 % of parents said their children have a hard time expressing their emotions appropriately.
Do you think it is beneficial for the relationship between you and your child to learn about each other's emotions?
- 90 % of parents find it beneficial for them to learn about each others emotions with their children. 10 % of parents do not find it beneficial.
Findings
Parents find it important to speak with their children about emotions, and children have a hard time expressing their emotions, and figuring out how to regulate on their own.
Personas
Kit Lee
Age: 6
Characteristics: Shy, likes to watch others from afar.
Hobbies: Kit likes to play with Barbie dolls, read, and watch YouTube videos
Goals:
-
Kit wants to know what to do when she feels lonely, and is put into lonely situations.
-
Kit can feel overwhelmed with feelings she is not sure how to verbalize.
-
She is afraid of being alone.
"I don't like seeing my friends play with other people because them I'm alone. I'm not sure what to do."
Frustrations:
Shawn Lee
Age: 40
Occupation: Medical supply salesman, single parent
Hobbies: Mr. Lee enjoys playing with his daughter Kit, and on occasion, golfing.
Goals:
-
Mr. Lee wants to give Kit a safe space to learn about her emotions and track her development.
-
Mr. Kit wants to learn about his own emotions and receive guidance.
Frustrations:
-
Being a single father, Mr. Lee doesn't have a lot of time to always sit down with Kit to talk about her emotions.
"Being a single father to a little girl is challenging. When I see Kit have strong emotions, I'm not always sure how to respond."
Competitive audit
While completing competitive audits to determine what our app should include, we narrowed down what features already established apps are contain and what we should steer away from.
There are not many social and emotional learning applications that are geared towards children, so we compared six different applications that had features we wanted to include in our application.
After spending some time with the apps we were comparing, we found that none of them had all three features we wanted to include in our application; Interactive / Drawing, Audio / Visual, and Social / Emotional Learning. Completing this competitive audit gave us a foundation for what feature to design for.
Starting the design
Paper wireframes
I created a few sketches to determine early designs for each main flow of the application.
Digital wireframes
I then adapted elements from my earlier sketches to create digital wireframes for different user flows on a mobile device.
Low-fidelity prototype
The low-fidelity prototype demonstrates both the parent and child user flow. The flow begins from the welcome screen and flows to the sign up page. Then the user chooses their profile that will then take them to their respective pages. The user will go through the flow and complete their desired tasks.
Usability study findings
The app should be used on mobile devices. Not all children will have access to a tablet, computer, or other devices.
The buttons within the app should have big enough buttons for them.
The app should be simple enough for a child to use on their own.
Refining the design
Mockups
Sign-up flow:
When first opening this application, the parent signs up for both themself, and the child. The parent account will be password protected so that their child can focus more on their own tasks.
Emotion learning flow:
This is the screen the child is greeted with first when they log in to their account. They can then choose how they are feeling, and learn how to cope with that emotion.
Emotions mailbox flow:
After completing their exercise of learning about their emotion, they can then head to the Emotions Mailbox where they can record how they were feeling that day. To open their mailbox where their emotion was recorded, they are prompted with entering a passcode, that way they are required to involve their parents.
Parent learning flow:
This flow is presented to the parents when they first log in. Here they can choose how they would like to learn for that day, while also having the option to view their child's activity in the application.
Sticker sheet
Accessibility considerations
We wanted this app to be vibrant while also being calming. The color scheme was chosen to make it easier for children to see the buttons and the soft icons create a welcoming environment.
The app will be used by both parents and children, and the simplicity of it gives children independence, while the content attracts their parents.
Going forward
Takeaways
A good amount of applications are not designed for children, or with children in mind, therefore, one of the takeaways I have is designing apps with children in mind. Not only child focused applications, but all applications.
Not only should children be considered, but the application compatibility for both parent and child should be considered, promoting parent - child interaction.
Next steps
We want to include a voice function for the child to be able to record their emotions using their voice. Sometimes children can be external processors, so making a feature that gives children the ability to record themselves vocally would be very beneficial.
Researching more children will give us the ability to reiterate on our design to reach a wider audience and including a greater age range.
Thank You!
