Playground: A Social Emotional Learning App
Playground is an app that teaches children how to understand their "big" feelings and learn social-emotional skills.
My Role:
Sole UX/ UX Designer
Duration: 2 months
User Research
Design
Design
Testing
Problem
Young children haven’t developed social-emotional awareness and skills to succeed in having healthy peer relationships.
Solution
Our app was made to teach children at home and school to practice mindfulness, have empathy and have the skills to calm down during the height of their emotions.
Target Users
“I don’t know what to do when I get angry during recess. My friends don’t like it when I yell or hit them.”
Logan
“Behavior issues in schools over the last few years have been a huge problem. Kids don’t know how to regulate their emotions.”
Mrs. Kim
“Natalie’s teacher says that she’s been dishonest at school. It’s really hard to believe because I don’t see her lying at home. I don’t know how to teach her how to be honest.”
Mrs. Trujillo
Low Fidelity Prototype
The way kids navigate through mobile apps are based on images and sounds. The design of the app was made to have matching text with each image so parents could use the app alongside the child.
Key Findings
After usability testing on 5 people (3 children and 2 parents)
The children didn’t know what to click on on the home page.
It is an SEL app however the colors contradicted the heart of the app.
The parents couldn’t see certain text clearly and were confused at where the button would navigate to.
I decided to take their feedback and redesign the prototype so it would be less noisy for the children and parents to use and navigate through. I needed a redesign.
Redesign
The redesign is meant to help parents and children navigate through together or individually. The home page now mainly has featured videos on empathy, sharing, and feelings. The 3 pillars of the app: games, mindfulness, and calming skills. This home state was better for the user testing as well. children and parents said that they knew what to expect when clicking the buttons and knew how to navigate through the app to land on their desired page. Overall, the redesign was much cleaner and a calm, inviting experience for the target users of the app.
Next Steps:
This app is a mobile app for on-the-go and emergency breakdowns/tantrums but I want to eventually design it for an iPad or tablet for children who have larger screens at home.
I also would design a web page for parents to have access to articles that focuses on social-emotional learning so they can practice it at home with their child.