Project Learn, UNICEF
/
Project Learn, UNICEF
/
Project Learn, UNICEF
/
A biotechnology microlearning solution for young learners
Team
Gunjan Alagh Juanita Thota Nikhila Ding Li
Contribution
UX Design & Research Design Strategy Stakeholder & Project Management
Timeline
5 months - ongoing
Context
A team at the UNICEF Office of Innovation would like to introduce biotechnology to children in developing nations between the ages of 10-13 outside of formal schooling. Our team of interaction designers is conducting primary research with children from seven developing countries through co-creation sessions and interviews. Our synthesis is leading us to concepts that will be prototyped and tested over the next three months.
Problem
Audience
Our primary audience is children aged 10-13. Since our primary audience are minors, we have considered our secondary audience as parents, as they would often be guiding the children.
Constraints
The solution is intended to reach children from developing countries aged 10-13, and introduce them to STEM subjects.
The solution needs to adapt to the child’s context for example, their language, learning capabilities etc.
Challenges
Through our research, we understood the many limitations of introducing any kind of technology to children from vulnerable groups.
Our biggest challenge is accessibility, in all forms. We are working on formulating solutions that adapt to low-internet and low-data access.
Research
The objective of this research is to explore the effectiveness of microlearning as a method of introducing biotechnology to children between the age of 10-13. To achieve this, the following research questions will be addressed:
What concepts in science spark a curiosity in children?
Where does this curiosity come from? (How did they first know about this topic?)
What resources/mediums children use to find more about topics they are interested in and how do they get to know about them?
We were trying to understand:
How might micro-learning be applied to demystify and effectively communicate the potential opportunities of a specific innovation to address challenges in complex social systems?
Interviews
Co-Creation
As part of all interviews, we facilitated three co-design activities: drawing a storyboard, match the following, and selecting their preferred visuals. These co-design activities helped to overcome language barriers, and enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of the children's perspective on the world.
Some drawings from children drawn during our Storyboarding activity:
Synthesizing insights from interviews
End to end experience
After many rounds of iterations we arrived at two main components of the experience.
First create awareness through the card game, which helps us create a tactile experience, we are able to use fun facts and illustrations to kickstart the learning process in an engaging and fun way
Extend the learning process through the web game, for which the QR code can be found on the card game box. The web game helps us create different levels of difficulty to suit children who are in formal or informal education.
Experience Map
This is the map of our end-to-end experience, and the various touchpoints we are designing for. When we were mapping this, one of the big things for us to figure out was how to create a smooth transition from the card and web game and we are now planning to do that with using the same visual style, illustrations and topics.
Testing
Over the last couple weeks, our progress has looked something like what you see on the right. A lot of prototyping, testing, iterating, and testing is still going on. We conducted 4 rounds fo testing, making up about 30 people.
Initial prototypes + testing
Insights from initial testing:
To explore multiple uses and ways that our prototype could function
Find ways to make the content the king of our prototype
and to use a personified illustration style
For the illustrations, children think they can relate more with those cards have characters on it. We iterated two version of characters to explore which one is balanced to relate children and express contents.
For the contents, it was exciting to observe children were naturally discussing them. It’s the evidence to show that our simplification of content in 1 sentence is successful and correct.
After initial round of testing and iterating on our designs, we gotta chance to connect with someone in Oakland who runs a summer camp for kids.
So we tested our prototypes both for the card game and the web app with 18 kids, all of them in the age of 10-13 years which is the age of our target audience.
We got a bunch of valuable feedback from the children
1. First, we understood that we have to create at least 8 or more sets of cards to enable children to continue their exploration of the game.
2. At the same time, we need to consider the accessibility and adaptability of the cards - how to ensure that children can quickly cut the cards, etc
Interestingly, this game is easily playable and unrestricted, and the children also explored other game rules themselves naturally, during the testing by using the same set of cards.
We are now working on figuring out..
We are currently working with UNICEF’s Office of Innovation to bring these ideas to life, touching the lives of about 4 million children.
STAY TUNED! ❤️
A biotechnology microlearning solution for young learners
Team
Gunjan Alagh Juanita Thota Nikhila Ding Li
Contribution
UX Design & Research Design Strategy Stakeholder & Project Management
Timeline
5 months - ongoing
Context
A team at the UNICEF Office of Innovation would like to introduce biotechnology to children in developing nations between the ages of 10-13 outside of formal schooling. Our team of interaction designers is conducting primary research with children from seven developing countries through co-creation sessions and interviews. Our synthesis is leading us to concepts that will be prototyped and tested over the next three months.
Problem
Audience
Our primary audience is children aged 10-13. Since our primary audience are minors, we have considered our secondary audience as parents, as they would often be guiding the children.
Constraints
The solution is intended to reach children from developing countries aged 10-13, and introduce them to STEM subjects.
The solution needs to adapt to the child’s context for example, their language, learning capabilities etc.
Challenges
Through our research, we understood the many limitations of introducing any kind of technology to children from vulnerable groups.
Our biggest challenge is accessibility, in all forms. We are working on formulating solutions that adapt to low-internet and low-data access.
Research
The objective of this research is to explore the effectiveness of microlearning as a method of introducing biotechnology to children between the age of 10-13. To achieve this, the following research questions will be addressed:
What concepts in science spark a curiosity in children?
Where does this curiosity come from? (How did they first know about this topic?)
What resources/mediums children use to find more about topics they are interested in and how do they get to know about them?
We were trying to understand:
How might micro-learning be applied to demystify and effectively communicate the potential opportunities of a specific innovation to address challenges in complex social systems?
Interviews
Co-Creation
As part of all interviews, we facilitated three co-design activities: drawing a storyboard, match the following, and selecting their preferred visuals. These co-design activities helped to overcome language barriers, and enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of the children's perspective on the world.
Some drawings from children drawn during our Storyboarding activity:
Synthesizing insights from interviews
End to end experience
After many rounds of iterations we arrived at two main components of the experience.
First create awareness through the card game, which helps us create a tactile experience, we are able to use fun facts and illustrations to kickstart the learning process in an engaging and fun way
Extend the learning process through the web game, for which the QR code can be found on the card game box. The web game helps us create different levels of difficulty to suit children who are in formal or informal education.
Experience Map
This is the map of our end-to-end experience, and the various touchpoints we are designing for. When we were mapping this, one of the big things for us to figure out was how to create a smooth transition from the card and web game and we are now planning to do that with using the same visual style, illustrations and topics.
Testing
Over the last couple weeks, our progress has looked something like what you see on the right. A lot of prototyping, testing, iterating, and testing is still going on. We conducted 4 rounds fo testing, making up about 30 people.
Initial prototypes + testing
Insights from initial testing:
To explore multiple uses and ways that our prototype could function
Find ways to make the content the king of our prototype
and to use a personified illustration style
For the illustrations, children think they can relate more with those cards have characters on it. We iterated two version of characters to explore which one is balanced to relate children and express contents.
For the contents, it was exciting to observe children were naturally discussing them. It’s the evidence to show that our simplification of content in 1 sentence is successful and correct.
After initial round of testing and iterating on our designs, we gotta chance to connect with someone in Oakland who runs a summer camp for kids.
So we tested our prototypes both for the card game and the web app with 18 kids, all of them in the age of 10-13 years which is the age of our target audience.
We got a bunch of valuable feedback from the children
1. First, we understood that we have to create at least 8 or more sets of cards to enable children to continue their exploration of the game.
2. At the same time, we need to consider the accessibility and adaptability of the cards - how to ensure that children can quickly cut the cards, etc
Interestingly, this game is easily playable and unrestricted, and the children also explored other game rules themselves naturally, during the testing by using the same set of cards.
We are now working on figuring out..
We are currently working with UNICEF’s Office of Innovation to bring these ideas to life, touching the lives of about 4 million children.
STAY TUNED! ❤️
A biotechnology microlearning solution for young learners
Team
Gunjan Alagh Juanita Thota Nikhila Ding Li
Contribution
UX Design & Research Design Strategy Stakeholder & Project Management
Timeline
5 months - ongoing
Context
A team at the UNICEF Office of Innovation would like to introduce biotechnology to children in developing nations between the ages of 10-13 outside of formal schooling. Our team of interaction designers is conducting primary research with children from seven developing countries through co-creation sessions and interviews. Our synthesis is leading us to concepts that will be prototyped and tested over the next three months.
Problem
Audience
Our primary audience is children aged 10-13. Since our primary audience are minors, we have considered our secondary audience as parents, as they would often be guiding the children.
Constraints
The solution is intended to reach children from developing countries aged 10-13, and introduce them to STEM subjects.
The solution needs to adapt to the child’s context for example, their language, learning capabilities etc.
Challenges
Through our research, we understood the many limitations of introducing any kind of technology to children from vulnerable groups.
Our biggest challenge is accessibility, in all forms. We are working on formulating solutions that adapt to low-internet and low-data access.
Research
The objective of this research is to explore the effectiveness of microlearning as a method of introducing biotechnology to children between the age of 10-13. To achieve this, the following research questions will be addressed:
What concepts in science spark a curiosity in children?
Where does this curiosity come from? (How did they first know about this topic?)
What resources/mediums children use to find more about topics they are interested in and how do they get to know about them?
We were trying to understand:
How might micro-learning be applied to demystify and effectively communicate the potential opportunities of a specific innovation to address challenges in complex social systems?
Interviews
Co-Creation
As part of all interviews, we facilitated three co-design activities: drawing a storyboard, match the following, and selecting their preferred visuals. These co-design activities helped to overcome language barriers, and enabled us to gain a deeper understanding of the children's perspective on the world.
Some drawings from children drawn during our Storyboarding activity:
Synthesizing insights from interviews
End to end experience
After many rounds of iterations we arrived at two main components of the experience.
First create awareness through the card game, which helps us create a tactile experience, we are able to use fun facts and illustrations to kickstart the learning process in an engaging and fun way
Extend the learning process through the web game, for which the QR code can be found on the card game box. The web game helps us create different levels of difficulty to suit children who are in formal or informal education.
Experience Map
This is the map of our end-to-end experience, and the various touchpoints we are designing for. When we were mapping this, one of the big things for us to figure out was how to create a smooth transition from the card and web game and we are now planning to do that with using the same visual style, illustrations and topics.
Testing
Over the last couple weeks, our progress has looked something like what you see on the right. A lot of prototyping, testing, iterating, and testing is still going on. We conducted 4 rounds fo testing, making up about 30 people.
Initial prototypes + testing
Insights from initial testing:
To explore multiple uses and ways that our prototype could function
Find ways to make the content the king of our prototype
and to use a personified illustration style
For the illustrations, children think they can relate more with those cards have characters on it. We iterated two version of characters to explore which one is balanced to relate children and express contents.
For the contents, it was exciting to observe children were naturally discussing them. It’s the evidence to show that our simplification of content in 1 sentence is successful and correct.
After initial round of testing and iterating on our designs, we gotta chance to connect with someone in Oakland who runs a summer camp for kids.
So we tested our prototypes both for the card game and the web app with 18 kids, all of them in the age of 10-13 years which is the age of our target audience.
We got a bunch of valuable feedback from the children
1. First, we understood that we have to create at least 8 or more sets of cards to enable children to continue their exploration of the game.
2. At the same time, we need to consider the accessibility and adaptability of the cards - how to ensure that children can quickly cut the cards, etc
Interestingly, this game is easily playable and unrestricted, and the children also explored other game rules themselves naturally, during the testing by using the same set of cards.
We are now working on figuring out..
