Empathy-persona map for a child who would use the app and a mother struggling with virtual school for her child.
Design of a K-5 learning app.
With the rise of homeschooled students still occuring due to Covid-19, many parents are looking for alternative ways to keep their children entertained while also continuing to learn.
Most of the assignments given in virtual lessons can be a bit exhausting for younger students, especially if it involves blocks of text and instructions. Having a good balance of fun and education in activities, videos, and assessments could provide supplementary guidance to develop their learning potential to the fullest.
Objective
Designing an educational app solution for young learners that can be used as a supplement to their school assigments.
Goal: To understand the audience and their primary needs.
Process: Observations and Interviews, Market Research
Currently, the students having the hardest time adjusting to virtual or homeschooling have been students in levels K-5. While missing out on social interaction, they are also having to depend on themselves more as not all teachers are available to teach the same hours online as in pysical classes and parent's are busy with work from home. As such, I believe creating an app that could combine the social and interactive aspects of in-class learning with educational activities that could be done at home, would be of great benefit to the student's progress.
I conducted interviews among three parents with children of ages 6, 9, and 10 to determine what they believe their child has been struggling the most on during this time. I also observed their children's current technological ability as they interacted with apps they already own.
The notes taken during these observations were then used to develop empathy-persona and journey maps for the users.
Empathy-persona map for a child who would use the app and a mother struggling with virtual school for her child.
According to this article technology should be used as a supplement to other learning tools such as "art materials, writing materials, play materials, and books." Fun apps can be used to engage young learners in interactive games or challenges with their peers that motivate them to learn.
As a previous educator in China, I learned that the best way to promote teamwork and motivation in the classroom was by implementing the use of technology in our lessons, whether through the use of educational videos or interactive games that fit the context of the material they were learning that week.
However, for students who are not being taught in a traditional classroom setting, as is the case for many children as the risk of Covid-19 continues, it is difficult to maintain this level of interactivity at home. Many parents also do not have the ability to spend much time to teach their children while also working at home, as would be needed with the use of e-books or other learning applications that require extra guidance to check for comprehension.
At the completion of the interviews, observations, and market research, I compiled the information I gathered into a user journey map illustrating a parent's process when accessing the app for the first time. While the parent is not the intended user, they are the intended customer and will justify it's use if it proves useful for their child.
In doing so, I discovered several points of importance to address in the application mockup.
Journey map of a mother and daughter's experience first using the app.
Goal: To create lo and hi fidelity prototypes of the app that meets the user's needs.
Process: Wireframes using Figma. Prototype using AdobeXD.
At the beginning of my design process I created wireframes for testing purposes.
Color is important when designing apps, especially those for children. According to research , children associate bright colors to postive feelings and dark colors to negative feelings. Keeping in mind color psychology, I decided to opt for bright, warm colors to represent joy and creativity.
Children's readibility is crucial, so to provide a valuable and accessible experience, I decided on larger, sans-serif fonts with plenty of icons and visual cues to guide the children throughout the app. A customization feature was also added at the top of the page to allow for font size changes.
Besides readibility, it is important to factor in how the children will interact with the app. This means reducing the number of gestures required for tasks in the lessons for younger children while gradually incorporating more gestures as the lessons progress in difficulty level.
