Designing the Arty Dreamers app was an amazing experience in which I learned a lot as a UX Designer. When I started this project I thought that designing apps for young children was easier than other products. I couldn’t have been more wrong! It was more challenging, from a UX/UI standpoint. Why? One reason is that kids differ from adults in many aspects: cognitive ability, categorization, reasoning, emotional control, logic, memory capacity, and motor skills.My goal was to create both an educational and entertaining product for children, but for this I needed to place myself in the childrens' shoes, listening and empathizing with each one of them before making design decisions. On the other hand, I need to take into account another group of users, the parents of the children, since the parents are in charge of making the decisions about which applications or products are the most suitable for the development of their children.Children aren’t afraid to explore and discover new things and touch any element on the screen, so I needed to make sure that the ones that are meant to be tapped looked and feel intuitive according to their purpose, trying to keep it simple, fun to interact with, and safe to use.Creating this app for the kids was so much fun! It helped me to show my creative side by using a wider and more vibrant range of colors, creating customized icons and logos, and recording and editing videos. For me, it was very rewarding seeing how the children followed the tutorial and had so much fun working on the Santa Claus project. Hearing them say they wanted to make another craft project and seeing them excited to use the app motivates me to keep designing more products that meet the needs of different user groups.

Final Thoughts

During my research, I found out that sound effects are very common in children's apps and help generate a reaction or response for each interaction. This audible feedback is very important for communicating with children and is also a good way to make it more interactive and exciting. For this reason, when I created the initial prototype, I decided to include some bubble sounds for the buttons and some voice narration in the Arty Dreamers app.Before the usability testing, I had a technical issue in Adobe XD with the play-action, so I had to test the prototype without sounds. The usability test went pretty well, even without the sounds, but I did get some feedback about how nice it would be to include them in the app. This feedback made me realize how important this is for a kid's app. In the future, I'd love to test the prototype again including more animations and sounds.In addition, it would be interesting to broaden the user audience and include craft activities for children over 6 years old. More functions can be added to the application that take into account the psychomotor development of their age group, their technological skills, and the craft activities of their preference.

Next Steps

Creating an empathy map helped me empathize and synthesize observations from the research phase, and elucidate insights about the children's situation when they are bored at home, the parents are busy working, and activities suited to the children's needs are difficult to find. The most important factors that affect the activity choice include weather, distance from home, and budget.

Empathy Map

In order to maintain the product vision and business goals, I created a feature roadmap that infuses the project goals into my product but also estimated effort and complexity, as well as the impact to determine the priority.I classified the features into four categories: Must-have (P1), Nice-to-Have (P2), Surprising and Delightful (P3), and Can-come-later (P4). These are some of the features that I categorized as P1.

Feature Roadmap

There are two user groups for the Arty Dreamers app. The first are parents who are looking for an application that helps them entertain their children by doing activities that are good for their learning and motor development, through fun and safe content suitable for children. The second are children between 3 and 8 years old who like crafts and want to have fun when they are at home by creating craft projects in a straightforward way, using very few materials but making incredible projects.Arty Dreamers wants to adjust its content to the kids’ capabilities by customizing each level according to the children’s age and skills. For this reason, the app will be divided into two different groups. The first group is children between 3 to 5 years, because their motor skills are still developing at this age. The second group is children between 6 to 8 years, because at this age, children typically know how to read and their skills in using art supplies are more advanced.For now, I will focus on the content design for the first group of children (3 to 5 years old), given that the majority of adults who participated in the surveys and interviews have children within this age range.Without further ado, let me introduce you to my two user personas, Laura and Grace.

Persona

Business Goals

Business-User Goals

Business-User-Tech

Understanding the user’s needs and goals drives product usability and, ultimately, ensures the product brings a user joy. The ideal user experience also incorporates an understanding of the business vision and technical constraints. Keeping this in mind, I decided to create this diagram where I included the objectives of the company, the user, and the common objectives. These goals were determined based on information gathered during the research phase and will help me prioritize solutions during the ideation phase.

Technical Considerations

Project Goals

User Goals

After identifying the necessary features for Arty Dreamers, I created a sitemap to visualize how the sections of the app would relate to each other and how the app would support smooth and intuitive interaction.

Site Map

I wanted to shape the user journey through a storyboard that shows how the solution addresses the problem. This narration helps me communicate the emotional state of my personas (Laura and Grace) and helps me understand those situations where the Arty Dreamers could solve their pain points by designing a child-friendly interface that considers interaction models and user experience from the child’s perspective.

Storyboard

Define

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I had the idea to create an app for children and also for their parents/caregivers because a few years ago I had the opportunity to do an internship as an au pair. I was taking care of 3 kids and sometimes it was hard for me and for their parents to find indoor activities to do with them (especially during the winter). We used to do a lot of crafts and projects, but some days I ran out of ideas of what to do and had to search apps like Pinterest and YouTube for inspiration to work with them on a new project. Browsing the internet to find fun project ideas that fit their ages was a little time-consuming and for their parents, after a long day at work, they had little choice but to let them use a tablet to entertain them or turn on the TV.Based on that experience, I wanted to learn more about the impact and opportunities that the Arty Dreamers app can have on children and caregivers, so I decided to conduct a competitive analysis that allowed me to learn a little more about the strengths and weaknesses of current digital apps and products in the market. During this competitive analysis, I reviewed several apps for kids that take a different approach to arts and crafts but are designed to encourage their learning in other areas. By doing this, I was able to identify some common patterns that most of them use, such as simple language to communicate with users (children), large buttons, voice/narration support with a child-friendly voice/tone, and in-app parental controls.On the other hand, I also researched some apps that offer content similar to what Arty Dreamers wants to offer, but I couldn't find many of them. In the competitive analysis below, I summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the direct and indirect competitors I encountered during my research process.

Competitive Analysis

Arts and crafts are affordable activities that kids can do both in class and at home to entertain themselves. Encouraging crafts in children will help them not only to enhance their creativity, their patience, their ability to concentrate, or their psychomotricity. It will also regulate stress levels, reinforce their self-esteem, and improve their social and teamwork skills.For the creation of this project, I started researching which activities kids like to do when they are not at school and how parents or nannies entertain the children during the time they spend together. Furthermore, it was very important to identify the different scenarios in which young children have access to electronic devices, what rules their parents set about screen time, preschoolers' and school-going children's motor skills, and hobbies, among others things, in order to create an application that can be useful, educational, and fun as well.To ensure the research stays on track and better guides the app design later, I listed the research goals and methodologies that will help me to get more familiar with the kid's and parents'/nannies' environment and learn more about their experiences.

Research

Research Goal

Research Methodologies

Research Objectives

After conducting my competitor analysis, I realized that there aren't many apps geared towards kids that teach them about arts and crafts. I decided to conduct a survey through google forms and I posted it on social media, where I asked people about their children's interests, activity habits with their children, their difficulties in finding activities, and rules and concerns around electronic devices. 20 adults participated in the survey, of which 83.3% were female. I have compiled and summarized the survey results in the graphics below.

Surveys

Empathize

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Children

From the surveys, I was able to conclude that there are many parents who download applications on electronic devices such as tablets to entertain their children and that many of their children show interest in arts and crafts.To get to know and understand the users, their motivations, needs, and frustrations, I proceeded to schedule interviews with 4 adults accompanied by their children to have a casual conversation, where I asked open questions to obtain more information about their day to day with the kids to be able to design an application that helps them with fun craft ideas when they have difficulties to find indoor activities for their little ones.These are some of the main ideas and feedback collected from both parents and children during the interviews.

Parents

User Interviews

When designing the Arty Dreamers logo, I wanted to make sure to keep things bright and cheerful to create a friendly and engaging brand. First, I outlined some ideas I had in mind to help explore multiple options. I included arts and crafts-related items like pens, scissors, paint splatters, shapes, etc. After that, I designed the logos in Figma and added some colors to define the vibe and look of the brand.I decided to use a colorful palette, using bright and vivid colors that will be visually stimulating, memorable, and convey the message that this is a craft and art app for kids.

To choose the logo that would best represent the Arty Dreamers application, I took into account which of them looked more visually attractive and also, which one could scale on different screens more easily without losing its intrinsic message. After evaluating these points, I decided that this logo would be the one that would represent the brand.

Branding

During the ideation phase, I had to consider the design of an interface for children taking into account the developmental characteristics at each stage and the set of skills that they possess at different ages. As I mentioned earlier, during this first stage of the project I decided to focus on the 3 to 5 year old age group, in order to help them foster their creativity while learning with simple and exciting craft projects.Since it is my first project aimed at children, I read a very interesting guide on <a>Invision</a> about the design of applications for children from which I gleaned best practices to keep in mind when designing for kids. This image illustrates the 4 key differences between designing for kids versus designing for adults, which made me think more about the decisions I was going to make during this phase.

Children's Content

Sign Up (Grown-ups)

During the previous phases of the design process, I was able to learn more about who I am designing the application for, the expectations and objectives that the users and the business have, as well as the features that must be included in the application.I started out by sketching the initial sign-up process that a parent/nanny must go through, and then focused on the screens that the children will see while following a craft tutorial. This allowed me to quickly iterate and review ideas before going into a more detailed and complex prototype.

Sketches

For the Arty Dreamers brand, I focused on creating a balance between a colorful, friendly, fun, and creative environment, while maintaining its reliability. Here is the full set of icons, colors, fonts, textures, shapes, and buttons.

Style Tile

I wanted to understand the journey and actions that my two personas Laura and Grace would take to complete the main task and achieve their goals. To do this, I decided to illustrate their journey through these task flows, where two different scenarios are established according to the needs and goals of each persona.

Task Flow

Ideate

Once I defined the brand identity, I started with the high-fidelity wireframes, lining everything up and making sure it looked visually appealing and kid-friendly. Here are the final screens with everything incorporated.

UI Design

Using the style tile as a guide, I created a UI Kit to ensure that the design standards remain coherent across the app.Icons & Images: Besides the bright and colorful palette, I incorporated images into the design to ensure that a cheerful, positive mood is presented.Buttons: The navigation and call-to-action areas should be focal points. So I designed large buttons with intuitive icons using Arty Dreamer's brand colors.The control buttons are green in color which is the primary color of the brand.The home button is the only purple button so kids can easily identify it in the app and know that this button will take them to the home page where they can select the project they want to do.The navigation buttons related to the step-by-step tutorial are yellow and larger than the others, so kids can easily navigate between videos. It will also have voice assistance to allow children to navigate by saying simple words like "next" or "previous".Typography: I wanted to use a typeface that has a friendly look and would be legible for the kids. I decided to use Quicksand and Open Sans, which are sans-serif fonts with well-defined contours and generous space between letters, giving a warm and inviting feeling.

UI Kit

By creating a user flow, I mapped out each user step from the point of entry to the final interaction. In this project, I have two different types of users who have access to different content through different entry points. First, there are parents/nannies who signup for their children and have access to the settings and controls of the application. The other users are the children, who need an application with which they can interact with intuitively, that encourages engagement through gamification, and thereby promotes user retention.This is the user flow created for the Arty Dreamers app. To see the full image, click on the button.

User Flow

We live in a time when technology has become a vital part of the daily lives of each of us and children are no exception to this reality. The challenge is to create an app that helps children learn and enhance their creativity through arts and crafts, making sure that every content they consume is easy to understand, fun, and appropriate for them.

Challenge:

Arty Dreamers is a new app aimed primarily at preschool and school-age children (3-8 years old), to encourage children's creative skills with Craft Ideas and Tutorials, where they can expand their imaginative thinking and stimulate their psychomotor development while having fun and sharing their creations with their family and friends.

Project Scope:

Role:

Design an application for preschool and school-going children that teaches them how to make different types of crafts, using simple supplies, in order to encourage their creativity and stimulate their psychomotor development.This application will also help their parents and babysitters with ideas of different activities to keep the children busy in their free time, while they learn and have fun creating their different projects.

Solution:

Time:

Adobe XD, Figma, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Wondershare Filmora

Tools:

After I finished designing the high-fidelity pages for the app, I linked them together and added some animations and sounds using Adobe XD to make it more interactive and give the app a more realistic feel so I could test it with my two groups of users: parents and children.

Tablet Prototype

Grown-ups: Sign Up Process

Kids Starting Point: Homepage / Tutorials

Prototype

I started the usability test with the childrens' parents, where I asked them to sign up for Arty Dreamers and create a profile for their child. After completing the registration process, the next task was adding another child's profile. They completed the task satisfactorily without any problems.Before starting the test with the children, I asked the parents to interact with the pages aimed at children and to watch the tutorial to get their opinion. The feedback from each one of them was very important to make the necessary adjustments in the application.The second part of my testing plan was with the kids. I wanted to see how they interacted with the product, how easy it was for them to follow the tutorial without assistance and under which scenarios they needed to request help from a grown-up.During each session, I asked them a few questions so they wouldn't feel like I was testing them, and I started writing down all the participants' observations during the test. Then, I grouped them by common patterns I noticed among the participants and created an affinity map.Below are some of the results obtained from the usability test.

Affinity Map

During usability testing, as parents and children completed the tasks, they gave me feedback on things that could be improved and what they would like to see in the Arty Dreamers app in the future.Although parents and children had no trouble navigating the Arty Dreamers app, during each session, a few ideas surfaced showing the high-priority changes that needed to be made to improve each user's experience.As a result of that, I made the corresponding revisions show below, and created the final prototype.

Kids love colors and animations, so I decided to design a splash screen that would welcome them to the Arty Dreamers app, immediately introducing them to the brand's tone, style, and personality.

Splash Screen:

Some tutorials require children to paint and use glue and thus require kid's to wait a bit while things dry. I was thinking about features that could be included to help them keep track of drying time before moving on to the next step. One of my thoughts was creating a button with a clock, where they can start the timer and hear an alert when the waiting time is over.This feature is not yet included in the prototype since the tutorial for making a Santa Claus does not require it. But it could be an important idea to contemplate in the future for the Arty Dreamers application.

Timer:

Priority Revisions

For the video tutorials, I placed a progress bar at the top of the navigation buttons to keep children on track by showing them how far they've progressed in their project and how much they have remaining.I decided to include a progress bar as an indicator instead of numbers like step 1 of 8, for example, because during this phase of the project my target group was 3 to 5-year-olds. Most recognize some numbers and know how to count small sets of objects — "two oranges, four straws" and so on, but I thought that the visual indication of a progress bar would allow them to track their progress more easily.Going forward, this is one of the features to be included in usability testing to see which option works best for kids based on their age group and make any necessary adjustments to improve their experience when using the app.

Videos:

Test

The success of the product will depend on how convenient, interesting, and thoughtful everything is for the kids and their parents. For this reason, I wrote a usability plan in which I defined the objectives, the methodology, and the tasks that users would be asked to complete using the high-fidelity prototype, in order to determine if the app is easy to use for a kid, how interesting it is, and if there are any difficulties finding or following the tutorials.User tests were done via video calls (using Zoom) with the participation of 3 parents and their children, where parents signed up for Arty Dreamers using their kids' tablet and then screen shared so I could see how the kids were interacting with and following the tutorial to create a Santa Claus. Before the test, I sent to the parents an email with the supplies needed for the tutorial to facilitate the testing with the kids.

Usability Test

What Kids Loved About the Arty Dreamers App:

An educational app that encourages and teaches arts & crafts to children.

Arty Dreamers