Colorful

INITIAL PROBLEM STATEMENT

There is much disparity in access to arts-enriched curricula, with the most robust programs only being implemented in well-funded schools. This impact is felt particularly strongly among students with special needs who are often overlooked in education policy.

How might we encourage community dialogue to improve the accessibility and efficacy of arts education in child development?

EXPLORING THE problem Space

White Paper Research

70% of parents with children with disabilities reported difficulty accessing arts programs and activities for their children. (Journal of Intellectual Disability Research)

There is a benefit to online learning: providing many modalities of learning (combining audio, video, and text) includes a greater audience that may not benefit from the standard learning process.

Brainstorming objectives

After reading various studies, we ideated core objectives we wanted to address with our product.

Create a safe space for children to explore art

Give students the confidence to explore disciplines outside of traditional academics

Promote inclusive, accessible education

Allow parents to engage with one another (community-oriented learning)

Competitive analysis

We explored what key features and objectives our competitors were covering to find a gap in existing solutions.

Opportunity

We saw an opportunity to create an accessible medium for younger students to embrace their creativity and empower them to champion + share their work.

Iterations

Our team gave each other feedback on the low-fi drafts for a more intuitive solution for accessible use.

1. Changing position of Parent Forum to be less visible for children by placing it at the navbar

2. Eliminating stress of choice by changing the layout of the community space for users to focus on single content at a time.

3. Making the artboard intuitive by minimizing necessary functions.

Technical Considerations

1. Designing for iPad -> Multi-modal interactions
2. Micro-interactions and audio stimuli
3. Acknowledging continual improvement with a dedicated feedback forum
4. Parental lock/security
5. Guide characters to interact with users + assist in getting over the learning curve of tech

Solution

Guided Practice + Free-form

Creative tooling can be intimidating and the steep learning curve may not always be the most kid friendly. While our interface is pretty streamlined, our characters also lead guided practice sessions. But creativity also shouldn’t have any hard rules, which is where free-form comes in.

Making your space

Kids can get messy when creating or playing, and that’s okay! We wanted to embrace this and allow users to organize their spaces how they want it.

Explore creativity through engagement

If they choose to, users can display their daily challenge creations on the Community Board. Encouraging kids to practice communication skills, they can add written captions or audio clips to their one-of-one pieces.

Personal gallery for sense of accomplishment

Personal gallery is an ongoing archive for all of the user’s work and progress. Aiming to stay away from hard metrics, users are rewarded with badges.

Reflection

Looking Forward and Measuring Success

How often are users sharing and creating work?
- How often do they include written captions?
- How often do these add audio clips?
- Are they starting to open up more?

Are users becoming more proficient?
- Completing doodles faster?
- Being less reliant on guided practice and doing more free-form?

How are parents interacting with the product?
- What does engagement in the forum look like using testimonies to make gauge efficacy?