KIKO is an interactive app paired with a toy companion that teaches children meditation and mindfulness techniques, helping them adapt emotional regulation skills and positive thinking.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
The Problem
Emotionally neglected children grow up to experience a variety of challenges, including depressive moods and prolonged internalizing behaviours. With the rate of mood disorders increasing in children and adolescents, prevention science research suggests that where child development is faster in the first five years, children require more support in their social experiences to progress towards developing emotional intelligence abilities.
KIKO is an interactive app paired with a toy companion that teaches children meditation and mindfulness techniques, helping them adapt emotional regulation skills and positive thinking. This product utilizes a tangible familiar object to engage children ages 3-12 to express and cope with their emotions in an unintimidating and accessible way.
Literature Review
To initiate my project, I conducted thorough secondary research for 2-3 weeks in the form of a Literature Review. My overarching research question I explored was: how does social emotional learning impact children’s mental health?
Competitive Research
I later evaluated the current market of similar children’s social emotional learning applications using the Benchmark Analysis. Based on the research, I found that there was no app that offered meditation techniques catered towards children with specific needs and learning styles. Current meditation apps offer no visual aid and are often overcomplicated for young beginners. There is also an opportunity for more tangible products as it is an effective mode of learning for children.
Revisiting the Problem
I also conducted a brief PACT Analysis which helped me understand the various contexts of the problem. For example, what information would my app need for it to cater to children with different learning styles / abilities? Will the app require parental guidance and to what extent?
Understanding the Audience
I conducted four user personas based on the four different learning styles. This helped identify my target audience and what their possible needs and pain points are and any opportunities for improvement.
Ideation
The System Map was created to show the various paths a user will take in the application to complete tasks. User Scenarios were then developed based on the user personas to further clarify the goals of potential users and assess whether or not the app achieves them.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
I began sketching the core features and designing mid-fidelity wireframes and conducted usability testing amongst my peers to assess whether or not the app was intuitive and receive feedback on particular pain points.
KIKO offers a personalized and customized experience for children with different learning styles and needs.
Kiko provides a curated routine with meditations and sounds catered to your little one! Personalize KIKO further by adding or removing items from your routine or adding to your favourites.
Browse and search through a diverse variety of meditations.
KIKO has a selection of visual meditations that promote relaxation.
Browse through a variety of interactive yoga and physical meditations.
Promote self-reflection and self-confidence with gratitude meditations.
KIKO provides a library of interactive children’s stories and calming music
One of the design limitations when developing this project was the lack of access to user research and user testing. Unfortunately, creating this project under my Thesis course did not allow for research involving participants outside the classroom. However, understanding these design constraints early on in the project encouraged me to be more strategic and resourceful in my design processes. For instance, as an alternative to user interviews, I took advantage of platforms such as Reddit, where people connect and share genuine stories and experiences, discussing and collaborating anonymously. This became a great resource for me to understand the personal experiences of my targeted users, using this information to better understand the design problem at hand.
When it came to user testing, I learned to take advantage of group critiques within the classroom as a resource for insightful feedback. Although my classmates weren’t my targeted audience, many of them had experiences relevant to my project. For instance, a student had experience babysitting a child with sensory overload, offering insight surrounding their different challenges and needs. Many classmates also used their own personal childhood experiences to provide feedback, which allowed me to see the different ways they were introduced to social emotional learning.
Overall, understanding and managing design constraints early on in the project definitely taught me to become more strategic, resourceful, and creative in my design research processes.
