We are said to be living in a content economy, where every other app is serving us more and more content. This results in excessive consumption and social media addiction and even kids are not immune to this.
Studies have shown an alarming rise in social media use among pre-teens and teenagers which brings the need to design for conscious creation over mere consumption.
As a young designer, I got to start my product design journey at Crossed Design where we designed xQ’s video app suite. We started with observing students of different age groups interact with stop motion and video making apps. Our observations led to the discovery of three distinct creator personas among children. While some of these kids were able to navigate the apps designed for adults, others needed ample handholding as they were not able to realise their ideas which lead to frustration and loss of interest.
Research conducted revealed that there is a lack of a comprehensive video-making tool which caters to kids keeping in mind their psyche & dexterity. Also, these apps lacked age-appropriate incentive to create new content.
Our aim was to enable children to learn different videomaking techniques and create and share their videos. To achieve that, we focused on 6 key principles:
Incentive to create
Indulgence to play
Handhold the offline setup
Constructive progression
Reduce adult dependency
Build for limited dexterity
We used principles of gamification and introduced a reward based framework which intrinsically motivate kids to create new content and explore variety of mediums on the app.
In line with the New National Education Policy, the app is embedded in classroom education to enhance creative, language, and social skills within kids. We included video-making projects linked to classroom teaching.
And last but not least… FUN! Creation is inherently fun and so should be the tool that enables creation. Hence, we were keen on creating a fun, appealing experience through the UI style, micro-interactions, customisation options, affirmative feedbacks and quirky copy along other elements thought out the products.
On a personal level, I had a great time learning and designing this project; making sure that we provide a cohesive, fun experience throughout the interconnected product lineup.