ImagineKids
An interactive educational voice interface for home-schooling children during COVID-19
Team
Lauren Jablonski, Dana Frostig, Irene Lin & Ipsita Mallick
Role
Guerilla User Research, Voiceflow interactions, Testing, Iteration & Presentation Pitch
Timeline
April 2020 (3 Weeks)
Problem
The global outbreak of COVID-19 is the change we are living in and living through. Overburdened parents who need to work from home are now faced with the additional challenge of supporting their young child’s growth (curricular growth, personal growth, inter-personal growth) during quarantine.
Early schooling not only provides opportunities for curriculum-based learning but also opportunities to practice personal (such as independance) and interpersonal skills (such as empathy and collaboration). While some elementary schools are able to transfer to online lessons, others depend on parents to homeschool their children based on pre-made lesson plans.
ImagineKids
A Conversational User Interface (CUI) designed for children between the ages of 5-10 to help parents faced with the challenge of supporting their young child’s growth as they work from home
Design Process
Project Goals
Curricular Growth
Support parents who have other demands on their time during quarantine by enriching the child’s curricular growth through educational games and daily schedules.
Personal Growth
Help children grow personally by encouraging them to use their imagination to entertain themselves and become more independent.
Interpersonal Growth
Facilitate interpersonal growth as the child practices conversing with the CUI and expresses their desires. Allow children to interact with other children who have their own CUI.
Designing for Conversation
ImagineKids hopes to leverage conversational user interfaces to enable parents to better provide learning experiences for their children in non-traditional ways. A CUI-based solution is
A more natural parallel to teacher-student interaction.
Less prescriptive and offers more freedom of expression
Circumvent current issue of too much screen time
Personas
Meet Sydney
Sydney is 7 years old and lives with her mother.
They are sheltering in place during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Sydney is completing her school year online via Zoom.
Meet Sydney’s Mom
Sydney’s mom is working from home full time due to the pandemic.
It’s difficult to work during the day and be there to support her daughter’s education and social development.
Interaction Modules
With ImagineKids, children are able to move between four interaction modules. Each module contributes to the social and personal development of the child.
Module Intents
Personal Schedule
Provide opportunities for independence through schedule co-creation between CUI and child
Learning and following a schedule
Deciding what to do during flexible time periods
Earning rewards for practicing responsibility
Collaborative Play
Engage child in co-creative and imaginative play during free time
Encouraging autonomy
Facilitating self-entertainment
Enabling self-expression
Educational Play
Engage child in purposeful roleplay to recapture lost curricular learning opportunities
Engaging students with flexible educational roleplay storylines
Contextualizing school learning in “real life”
Covid Conversations
Provide emotional support for child in the form of thoughtful conversation on hard topics like COVID-19
Understanding what COVID19 is
Reminding/Explaining about Social Distancing, Health & Hygiene
Comforting when bored or miss their friends
Orienting to parents for guidance
Interaction Flow
The Voiceflow interaction was designed to answer multiple utterances from children by the each of the following conversation intents:
Understanding COVID-19
“What is the coronavirus/COVID19?”
“What is a pandemic?”
“Why is nobody allowed to go out anymore?”
“Why can’t I meet my friends anymore?”
“Why was everyone talking about a virus at the park?”
“What is social distancing?”
COVID-19 Updates/news
“When will the virus go away?”
“What are they saying about people dying in the news?”
“When can I go to school again?”
“What is happening outside now?”
Comforting When Anxious or Bored
“Can I go meet my friends now?”
“I want to go play with my friends”
“I’m bored”
“I’m scared”
“I feel sad”
“I am angry with mommy/daddy”
“I miss playing with my friends”
“I miss playtime with mommy/daddy”
Dealing with Parent Issues
“Why is mommy/daddy always on the phone/laptop?”
“Why does mommy keep scolding/annoying me?”
“Why does mommy/daddy want me to stay at home all the time?”
Helping with Health & Hygiene
“Why do I have to keep washing my hands?”
“Why do I have to wear a mask?”
“What happens if I don’t wash my hands?”
“Will I die if I get the virus?”
“Does mommy/daddy have the virus?”
Design Considerations
When it came to designing a CUI for kids we knew we had to take the time to make careful design considerations.
Sensitivity
For errors, missed input, no input, unintelligible input will need to be elegant, communicative and responsive to children’s short attention span & inquisitiveness.
Adaptability
Flexibility to adapt content over time for age-relevant learning.
Customization
Parents can set customized responses and programs.
Reliability
Parents can control privacy settings.
Future Roadmap
Though the current version of ImagineKids CUI is designed using VoiceFlow, which allows for integration of the conversational/voice interface with existing voice assistive devices such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa, we envision a mobile toy-like physical embodiment of the CUI which is customizable as per required usage needs of parents and children through a relevant form.