A User Experience and Interface Designer
Kidzone App
Project Type
Mobile App
Role
User Experience and Visual Designer
Tools
Adobe XD , Adobe Illustrator
About Project
The KidZone mobile application offers kids entertainment and educational content. The app supports content including academic learning, rhymes, interactive puzzles, games, tips for parents, cartoons, stories, etc. The application also offers parental control to monitor month-by-month progress and turn on/off the features they want to. Target Segment is K-4 to K-9.
My Role
I was working as a product designer at Mahindra Comviva and tasked with designing the app from the ground up. Kidzone app is one of the VAS product of mahindra comviva which they sell as a whitelabeled service to the telecom operator across the globe. This app has wider reach of audience from different geographies. This started with UX research, content auditing, competitive analysis and strategy on information architecture followed by interaction wireframes and prototypes and finally user interface design, visual branding and digital illustration.
What I do
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UX and UX Research
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Information Architecture
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Interaction Design (iOS, Android )
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Prototyping
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Visual UI Design
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Creative Direction
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Brand Strategy & Positioning
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Illustration
Discovery
The discovery process began with a kickoff to establish the project goals, design strategy, user audience and to review existing app architecture and design. However, the experience was a bit vague; it wasn’t child-oriented and the overall experience wasn’t good enough to make it stand out from all the popular related apps, even though this type of product should be up there with the best.
Initial Research
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Globally Kids use smartphones and the internet primarily for social networking
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72 % Kids under age 8 with smartphone access use it to consume media
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26% of kids under 13 have a YouTube account
*The above research was done in 2016
User Surveys
The team conducted extensive research to understand how do children use mobile and tablets. The results are :
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77% use mobile to play games
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57% for education purposes
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55% Entertainment while traveling
*The above survey was done in 2016
The project brief helped me point out a few assumptions, which acted as key points to direct me during the agile UX research:
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Kids will find the learning process fun and engaging
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The product is unique, therefore a learning process will be required
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Parents will love the way that their kids play with the product
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The step-by-step play is pretty straight forward
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This product should appeal to kids aged 4–9
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Some of the features will require parental help, mostly on setup and first-time use
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The app’s functionality is pretty basic and in the long term it won’t be enough
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The learning curve won’t be as clear as we want it to be
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The app won’t be engaging enough
Previous App Design
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Design & Features
Onboarding
Easy and Simple onboarding process for kids but can be done by a parent for the first time as there are multiple activations required during the process. This app allows parents to create a separate account for each kid, because our content recommendations is based on the kid's age.
Day and Night Mode
App UI is based on time & its time zone, when the time is 5:30am then it will display day mode and if its 7pm in the evening it automatically shifts to night mode.
Customized Music and Video Player
Customized music player for kids which is easy to use and just a click away
Parental Control
To avoid unnecessary downloads or purchases or just want to lock the app for a certain period can be done by parents only.
Subscription
Allow parents to buy subscription for the app in just 2 clicks.
Visual Design & Illustration
The design style was crafted with a balance of playfulness and trustworthiness. The overall aesthetic and branding attracts young, who use mobile for entertainment and learning. The modern, playful and vibrant illustrations combine with a card UI.
One of my concerns in designing an application with so many features was that it would become a Swiss Army Knife app - instead of doing one thing really well, it contains many different features that go unused. My goal was to make strong connections between all areas of the application and provide a fluid, cohesive experience. Holistically, the app could truly be the one digital tool needed for kids.