Riddhi Deepak Bhartiya
Creating engaging activities
• Kids need engaging activities to stay focused and motivated.
• For a particular activity, kids need to be challenged to their own skill level to get maximum engagement.
IMPACT OF COVID
Discovery family friendly activities
• The difficulties of finding the right activity
Mutual interests between parents and kids
• Bonding is not restricted to traditional family activities (e.g. going to the zoo).
• Can be anything involving learning and progressing together - activities where both can participate.
Understanding feelings and behavior
• An open and empathetic relationship between parent and their child builds trust.
• Encouraging a child to pursue their true interests to see high motivation levels.
Impact of Covid
• COVID lockdowns allowed kids and parents to strengthen their bond.
• Post-COVID has seen kids struggle with their social confidence and discipline.
Managing technology
• Simply removing technology is not realistic.
• Technology is not a aw but a potential catalyst.
Solution - F.A.M.
A world building game where the player gets to build and upgrade his own city using in-game resources. These upgrades cost in-game coins which they can only acquire by completing real-life collaborative activities. The more people they do these activities with, the more rewards they get. There are 3 activity categories from which challenges will update weekly based on set personal preferences which can be changed in the filters. Activities will be tracked via geolocation to ensure that participants are in the vicinity of their chosen activities. Parents have the ability to buy coupons from partnered businesses using a different in-game currency which can only be acquired by progressing in the game. So there is a co-responsibility and mutual interest for parents and kids to use the app.
As the recent pandemic forced upon online learning commitments for students and digital work-from-home options for essential workers, society's reliance on technology increases to an all time high (Cui et al. 2021). This has resulted in a disconnect between household family relationships
Why?
Due to an abundance of information access in today's modern age as technology continues to evolve, develop and expand, limitless options have become overwhelming for the everyday family to discover family friendly activities to participate outside their homes (Larson et al. 2011)
What?
Impact
Consistent stimulation of entertainment, education and media communication from one accessible source; technology, prompts the average household member to comply towards the more comfortable option of activity spent with the family. This affects both parents and children's preference within the household, decreasing a likelihood to choose outdoor activities
Insights
FAM is comprised of 3 mission categories, which activities can be randomly selected from based on set preferences in the filters. These categories are:
• Leisure - Leisure activities are based on things people do that are purely for enjoyment purposes.
• Education - Education activities are related to places people go where they can learn new things.
• Exercise - Exercise activities are based on fitness and sports
PAs the virtual progress is dependent on outdoor activity, this would essentially encourage children to spend added time completing the activities. In order to maintain children’s engagement, an activity needs to not only be challenging but invoke a sense of progression. The sense of progression in FAM can only be achieved if children continuously engage in completing the activities/mission to gain the necessary in-game resources to further build their virtual city.
FAM will also promote featured missions that directly relate to live events currently being held. This incorporated the findings from the primary research regarding parents often getting outdated information. Due to the consistent engagement with the FAM platform, parents will be able to immediately see those featured missions and be informed on the live events.
In order to track the progress of families in relation to the activity, FAM will integrate a geolocation feature. Once in the vicinity of the particular activity (e.g. Albert Park for a walk), the prompt to begin the activity will appear. This will then be under progress until the required duration (e.g. 30 mins). Once the time limit has finished, the prompt to claim the reward will appear.
Vimeo
FAM also allows parents to set filters according to own personal preferences. FAM allows parents to set the duration of their activity completely based on their own schedules and preferences. The app also allows them to set their own budget and the proximity radius that they want to be in to be notified about the activities and events. FAM gives them an option to set their preferable days that they would like to complete missions every week.
The final prototype looked towards aligning the different motivations of parents and children to establish a mutual interest through the platform instead of the game. Parents' main motivation towards using FAM would involve spending quality family time with their children as well as the ability to view and discover new activities and redeem vouchers. Children on the other hand were more focused on the sense of progression through the game
help parents easily engage in family friendly experiences for their kids to get out of the house, have fun and interact with the world around them?
How Might We
User research
Based on the background research, the team then proceeded towards conducting primary research. This included a set of interviews and surveys that were run. This primary research looked at not only the target segment of parents, but also caretakers, which the team classified as any individual with regular contact with children as a result of their profession. The interviews looked more closely within the Australian context and the survey looked to identify potential differences and similarities in parenting/caretaking in other countries. An overview of the distribution of data collected from the primary research can be found below.
Parents interviewed
15
Parents surveyed
81
Caretakers interviewed
8
The analysis of the key insights led to the development of the following personas. These depicted the key insights that were gathered from both the interviews and the surveys. Two personas were created in order to reflect the target segment of the interviews, parents and caretakers
User persona
Based on the background research, the team then proceeded towards conducting primary research. This included a set of interviews and surveys that were run. This primary research looked at not only the target segment of parents, but also caretakers, which the team classified as any individual with regular contact with children as a result of their profession. The interviews looked more closely within the Australian context and the survey looked to identify potential differences and similarities in parenting/caretaking in other countries. An overview of the distribution of data collected from the primary research can be found below.
Secondary Research
COVID-19 IMPACTS ON FAMILY DYNAMIC
The coronavirus pandemic has been found to be having profound and long-term impacts on children .144 countries closed schools leading to around 1.2 billion students globally being unable to attend physical classrooms due to social distancing (Zhu et al, 2021). Children went back home and were separated from their peers due to the lockdown , this brought upon negative impacts on children’s mental health in which they were found to be more vulnerable during the pandemic.
COVID impact
Children went back home and were separated from their peers due to the lockdown , this brought upon negative impacts on children’s mental health in which they were found to be more vulnerable during the pandemic.
TECHNOLOGY RELIANCE IN THE MODERN DAY Mandates for children to engage in online learning were established and non-essential businesses were forced to either close or have digital “work from home options” for employees (Cui et al. 2021). As a society, this resulted in an increase of engagement and reliance on technology for both children and adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. “People are now spending even more time with technology while consuming news media, watching television, using social media to connect with others, utilizing lifestyle apps to shop for groceries and other consumer goods, and engaging in home workouts.” (Garfin, 2020)
Technology reliance
Mandates for children to engage in online learning were established, this resulted in an increase of engagement and reliance on technology for both children and adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.
OUTDOOR LEAISURE TRANSITION DUE TO TECHNOLOGY
The heavy reliance of technology imbedded into current lifestyles reduces families overall time spent outdoors. Studies indicate that children today are spending less time outdoors than previous generations. For children, electronic media consumption and parental/guardian involvement in outdoor recreation activities influences the time they spend outdoors. 65.3% of children spending time outdoors are relying on electronic media as well being strongly correlated with the amount of time their parents and/or guardians spend outdoors.
Outdoor leisure transition
The heavy reliance of technology imbedded into current lifestyles reduces families overall time spent outdoors.
spending more time together as a family.
discoverability of new family friendly activities/experiences
getting kids out of the house
This open brief presents three main issues to prioritize -
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To solve the issue at hand requires in-depth investigations into household family dynamics and behaviours at great detail in order to resolve disconnects found within family households.
Use technology to encourage family to interact with each other outside their homes?
How Might We
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“The problem with a higher reliance of technology and screen time leads to children lacking motivation to engage in outdoor family-friendly activities since most of their interests are accessible through electronic devices. A successful solution woud be to embrace and integrate technology within outdoor activities."
Redefined Problem Statement
We Realize
While attachment to technology is a key reason for kids’ diversion of interests, it would be unrealistic to tell parents to remove it from them completely so they could spend time together. Technology has become an integral part of not only kids’ entertainment, but also their education and their social life. Hence, it was determined that the successful solution should integrate technology as an incentive for kids to participate in outdoor family friendly activities. This would increase kids’ engagement levels and make the activities more enjoyable for both parents and kids. The ability to use technology gives infinite potential methods we could use to maintain engagement and this is what we will explore as we start ideating potential solutions.
My Projects
