POKIT
Educational App for Kids
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Pokit is an app designed for young children who are curious about the world around them and want to explore by asking lots of questions. The app encourages kids to ask questions, get answers, and dig deeper into topics to satisfy their desire to learn. With Pokit, children can easily find answers to their questions and get insights into fascinating topics that they might not have otherwise explored. It's a perfect way for parents, teachers, and caregivers to provide children with access to a world of information while also promoting a love of learning.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Scope
Concept design
Time
4 weeks
Role
User Research | iOS App Design | UX | UI | Prototype | Short movie presentation
Tools
Figma, iMovie
DEFINE PROBLEM
It is natural for children to be curious about everything around them, and it is essential to cultivate this curiosity in order to assist them in developing mentally and learning about the world around them.
Parents often struggle to answer the seemingly never-ending "who, why, what, when, where, and how" questions, and may turn to Google for answers or simply say "I don't know."
Additionally, given the prevalence of voice-activated smart home devices, kids are increasingly learning to use virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, or Google Home for answers. However, these devices have yet to be developed with a kid-centric focus, and the content is not always suitable for children.
"Alexa, teach a kid how paper is made."
- a frustrated 5 year old when Alexa responded with an answer that was too difficult to understand
USER RESEARCH
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
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Understand what kids are curious about and how they ask questions
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Understand how kids interact with digital tools
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Understand how parents feel about media and digital tools for kids
USER INTERVIEWS
I conducted four main user interviews with parents of children aged 4-8, and reached out to two additional people for quick feedback to verify that there wasn't a gender difference in behavior among children.
Based on research, there was a clear need and opportunity for a digital solution that caters to kids' curiosity about what's happening around them, what they see, and what they hear about. By leveraging the abundance of digital content available, we can teach children to understand the research process and cultivate positive habits in using digital tools.
Hypothesis
My initial hypothesis was that this tool would be helpful for 4-5 year olds. However, due to limited language skills at 3-4 years old and their cognitive abilities, I have re-defined the target age of this tool to be 5 years or older.
ANALYZE + IDEATE
FRAMEWORK EXPLORATION
To design the core experience of the app, I explored various layouts to maximize screen space for more visually enhanced experience, while providing two different paths of exploration. While the deep dive path will help users who want to learn about a specific topic in greater detail, the related topics path will open up new avenues of learning and exploration, encouraging users to broaden their horizons.
The true value of this app is for children to endlessly explore without any constraints or limitation. The children would have control of their own learning experience.
PROTOTYPE
After analyzing and synthesizing the gathered insights, I designed the app to include an interactive monster and friendly character named "Pokie". Pokie will explore with the child and can be asked questions. When the child is reading about a topic, Pokie will patiently wait but will be excited to be interacted with for more questions. The platform is primarily designed for younger kids who may have more questions but are not yet able to read and write. The app will utilize voice recognition technology to enable kids to navigate independently and explore.
To test the concept with younger children, I created an interactive prototype. Additionally, I made a short video clip to demonstrate how the app would function in real life.
BRANDING AND STYLE GUIDE
Once the structure was defined, I focused on creating an overall visual style that would be most appealing to the younger demographic. It needed to be fun and colorful, yet not clashing with all the visual content that will be constantly changing. To create a brand image of simple, bold, and creative, the following images below were used as my inspiration.
Pokie, the Interactive Character
My final step was to incorporate the interactive features that would bring together the overall experience. To engage this target demographic, it was important to create a relatable and fun, interactive character that guides and assists them throughout the experience. Below are the key ways in which Pokie would interact with the child. At each stage, there is both visual and sound feedback to make it easier for a child to converse with Pokie.
DESIGN FEATURES
Pokit incorporates gamification and reward systems that make learning and exploring fun. The app motivates kids to ask questions and dig deeper into topics to satisfy their curiosity. This approach nurtures a child's natural curiosity and helps them develop mentally while having fun.
Children can keep asking Pokie questions or explore recommended content based on their location and current events. This feature allows kids to learn about the places they visit and the events happening in their community.
Pokit provides a visually stimulating experience that keeps kids engaged and learning, without the drawbacks of mindless screen time. The content is carefully curated to ensure that it is safe and appropriate for children. Parents can rest assured that their children are learning in a secure and controlled environment.
USER TEST + ITERATE
DESIGN EVALUATION
Through in-person, moderated usability tests, I was able to observe clear connection to Pokie and enthusiasm for the app.
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3 Parents
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2 five-year olds
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Multiple focus groups with parents and early childhood educators.
"Pokie is amazing."
"I like the cute little blob character. I think it would be liked by all children."
- usability testers
Many parents and early childhood educators mentioned that this app matches kids need and their behavior and that they would feel very comfortable to introduce this type of tool to their children.
One main feedback for improvement was to reduce distractions. Based on the behavior of children in the target age group, we understand that every item on the screen can potentially divert the user’s attention away from the main goal of the app. To ensure that users stay focused, I have removed features such as "save for later" that could act as a distraction and hinder the exploration of behavior.
FINAL DESIGN
NEXT STEPS
My goal is to bring Pokie to life; for this, I will need to create more content and collaborate with an engineer who can build this app and make Pokie fully interactive. One of the post-MVP capabilities that I would like to include, is for the content to be interactive with users as well where kids can post more questions and parents will be able to offer content through a crowd sourcing approach. This way we can help Pokie continue to learn as well!