project process journal

Re-Imagination

Laura Aho

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Contents

Introduction

Project time line

Insights

Brief Users

Research on play

Research on technology

Concepts

Development

Model making

User testing

Outcome

Living with Re-Imagination

The stand

The interface

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4 - 5

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8 - 9

12 - 21

22 - 25

28 - 33

36 - 51

52 - 53

54 - 55

56 -

58 - 61

62 - 63

64 - 65

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Introduction

This project derived from the interest of product gendering. The research was focused on children’s toys and playing, because the extreme gendering of toys bothered me. When reading into play I came across several articles of parents struggling to play with their children because of other competing interests, time management and the inability to engage with their children’s imaginative play.

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Article on Lego’s toy line for girls sparked the interest to find out what play is and should be about.

Research on play; the articles of parents struggling to play.

Reading on the importance of parents spending time playing with their children.

First concept sketches for engaging parents.

Interviews on why do parents find playing boring; difficulty to participate in the child’s imaginationary play.

Research on the importance of dramatic play for developing cognitive skills as growing up.

Project time line

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First mock-up: a stop motion film shown to parents and people who work with children for feedback.

Defining technology.

User testing; imitation of parts of the game with the use of animation created as playing.

Model demonstrating functions of the stand for playing Re-Imagination.

Outcome

Aim to create a toy that would enhance creativity and engage parents by displaying what the child is imagining.

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The insights

A third of parents in the UK do not enjoy playing with their children, due to their lack of imagination and child’s dominant role in play.

Children would like to have more play time with their parents.

Different kinds of play are important for learning; alone, with other children and parents.

Many parents do not recognize what importance the playing with their child has for his / hers self confidence, vocabulary and learning.

Especially working parents struggle to find time for play.

Parents are more likely to play video games or watch TV with their children rather than actively engage in play.

Fathers are more likely to physically play with their children, which is what the kids find the most fun; running, lifting.. Mothers spend time with the kids in calmer ways for example teaching.

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Opportunities

Stimulate the parents imagination.

Create props for inspiring the next turn in the play.

Enable creativity in play so that something can be produced

together. Make parents tasks more like

play for the child to participate in.

Encourage parents to play as a means of

teaching.

Brief

Make the dramatic playing more fun and

engaging for the parent so that they could

do it more.

Create a game with different levels for the

child and parent. Create a game

that requires team work with the parent and

child.

The fatherTom works long hours and he struggles to get his mind off work even onhis free time. He enjoys playing ball games with his daughter, but doesn’t often feel like making the effort to go out to play. He rather goes running himself, watches a film with his wife or plays board games with the whole family.

The motherAs a working mother who also runs the home Margaret feels like she is struggling with time to play with Ann even though she enjoys it. She likes to read and tell stories to her at bed time. Margaret is looking forward for Ann to grow so that they can do more things together.

The childAnn has just started school and she is exited about every new day as she has already made friends and enjoys learning. She likes to show her parents what she has made and tell what she has learned. Ann would like to have more time with her parents especially with her dad, who has never been very good at playing penguins or anything fun Ann comes up with.

Users

Time frame for playing would be after work with one parent at a time as the other one might have to do household tasks.

As working parents live a busy schedule it would be useful to ba able to play in short section after work and in between housework. If the play would be partly virtual it would be possible to save it for later and go back to it.

gendered toys

lego Play

insights

research

adults playing with children

parents

technology

Play

insights

parents

technology

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Unnecessary gendering: Lego

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Lego is normally used as an example of ungendered toys. The brand started off this way, but has then shifted towards marketing for boys by advertising themes and almost only male characters.

New toy sets themed around combat are being released all the time and the basic house building kit comes in traditional colour and in pink.

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Unnecessary gendering: Lego

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As an attempt to also sell products to girls Lego has done a separate ‘city’ from the standard ‘Lego city’, featuring separate characters. Lego city has firemen, criminals and policemen whereas Heartlake city, the girls’ version, has bakery, beauty salon, vets etc.

The good impacts that playing with Lego is said to have for childrens learning sparked an interest in other types of play and possible benefits.

Is this what toys should be about?

What should play be about?

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Adult and child and gender

Folkhälsan, a social and health association in Finland, did a project on equality where they installed video cameras in a kindergarten. They discovered that girls are more likely to clean up after themselves and at times the boys too. Girls were also asked to help serve the food. When going outdoors boys were helped to put on their clothes as the girls were waiting. Boys were talked to in short sentences being told what to do and girls were chatted to with longer sentences.

As teenagers girls tend to lose interest in mathematics and boys are more likely to struggle with writing. Maybe these things are already picked up as children? As boys are not talked to as much.

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Benefits of certain kinds of play later in life

Parents hope that by buying their children cleaning toys they would learn to be independent and tidy up after themselves. There’s science toy sets, craft toys and toys that need to be assembled. Anything that the child does is learning, so I chose not to focus on any particular ‘beneficial’ type of toys. A child needs a range of activities to develop skills. This might be why some researches suggests that computer games might hinder learning. If the child is playing video games too much he/she might skip some other types of play, for example social and physical games.

When it comes to so called ‘dramatic play’ which can be free from any existing objects and people the child imagines scenarios and so practices creativity, develops problem solving as well as organising and planning skills. Dramatic play also helps to build language skills by giving children the opportunity to try out new words and roles. In addition, dramatic play improves academic skills. Many children process new academic concepts through dramatic play. Children learn a lot through their imagination.

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What is children’s play?

Play is a means of learning everything from physical- and social- to mathematical skills. Playing is also a way of making friends, bonding and spending time.

The types of play and interests obviously changes as the child grows up, however most children for example enjoy collecting something, physical playing and games.

Play is also a means of communicating and processing feelings and thoughts. Playing out different scenarios helps the child prepare for real life (doll broke an arm and is going to the doctors..).

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Different types of play

Dramatic play means imagining scenarios to play in as well as people, animals, stories, objects..Some existing materials might be used or the whole play can relay purely on imagination.

Manipulative play is about holding and handling small toys often used to build objects but also found in puzzles, characters, beads, etc.

In physical play the child can use the whole body in activities with bikes, balls, jump ropes, hoops, play structures, etc.

Creative play is making something through a process using materials such as paint, clay, markers, pencils, glue, etc.

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Target

Play evolving over the years

Birth to 2 yearsChildren begin by selecting objects that give them a response, such as toys that make noise or bounce. In turn, adults make sure the child’s toy selection includes ones that stimulate their senses and enhance their co-ordination skill development. The child will also pretend objects are used for other purposes such as using a banana for a phone. This is the beginning of dramatic play.

2-4 By this age children realize one thing can stand for another. By processing this knowledge, toddlers are able to imitate or imagine events that do not exist. Through this fantasy play, children can examine events and relationships in ways that are different from the original intent; pen flies as a bird.

4-6Children in preschool and early elementary grades continue to use fantasy play. Play is getting more social, structured and is based more on reality than fantasy. They also begin to show interest in group play; like games with simple rules.

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Parents playing with their children

Surveys and some practical test show parents struggle to engage and enjoy playing with their children. Playing isn’t fun and it takes time from other tasks. Almost 30% of parents feel guilty about playing instead of doing housework according to Ribena survey of 2000 parents. Many parents also struggle to know how to play. (30% of parents find playing with their children boring and 21% have forgotten how to play.)

Playing with parents is an important way for the child to learn words for different social scenarios and to build confidence. Almost half of 2,000 parents questioned said they would welcome an expert help on how to play.

Parents buy video games to avoid entertain their children and rather take part in the game than play physically, however the video games children rather play on their own. Children would like to have more play time with their parents in general (Guardian survey over 50% of 5-15 years old children would like more time with their parents).

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After a short stint playing a mind-numbing game of Dora The Explorer Candyland, I fake a bathroom emergency. When I come out, I casually begin folding laundry. When Julia calls me back to the game, I tell her I’ll come back soon. I’m lying.

When my son was 3, our family went through a very stressful time. He was angry and acting up at school. One of his teachers suggested I start a daily child directed unstructured playtime routine at home. I followed her recommendation on the second day I saw incredible positive changes in my son.

Quotes from parents on playing with their children

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Generally parents staying at home play through out the day in short periods by making household tasks fun (throwing laundy etc). Working parents like the play as a means of relaxing after work and prefer it rather calm.

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Making it more like play for the child

As parents are busy with housework and possibly also a job there isn’t much time for play. The time challenge imposes making the parents tasks more fun for the child.

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Technology: interactive projections

Touch screens, interactive projections, 3D technology... all such things provide solutions for sparking the imagination and making play or game more challenging and interesting for the parent.

The images are of the ‘sixth sense’ prototype that includes a camera and a projector that are synchronized via a smart phone. The camera can read hand signals and respond to them so that any surface can function as a screen. Cost of the working prototype was 300 dollars in 2008.

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Opportunities by technology

Touch screen / interactive projection

Sensors

Easy to save play and

continue later

Potential extra parts as the child

grows

Easy to transport the play

Linking objects or people to the image displayed

Physical activities at

home

Interaction between the screen and

reality

Drawing

Assembling environments,

people...

Separate tasks for adult

and child

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Children and interactive projections

Babies and toddler learn about the world by finding responses, reactions and sound effects. Just as a baby likes to hit things to make sound he / she would also enjoy the visual reaction that can be created with the interactive projections. Toddler love to kick, sit on, hit and jump on the projection seeking different kinds of effects.

Older children are more likely to make a game out of the projection, for example trying to hit all the fish on the projection before they swim out of the picture.

Even if several children are involved this tends to be individual play.

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Games and other uses for adults

Interactive projections are used for presentations, drawing and games. In the photo below the game console films and projects the user’s moves and synchronizes them with the objects in the game creating the possibility to jump to avoid a moving object like below, or to collect flying objects by reaching for them. These games can also be played by several people at the same time.

ideas

idea

idea

idea

idea

idea

idea

idea

idea

idea

from opportunities to concepts

idea

aiming to create a toy / line of toys that encourage and allow the parent to play with their child by creating an experience of using their imagination together.

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Enhancing creativity in order to avoid gendering

flexible

assembly

My first interest in toys was evoked by Lego’s new toyline for girls. In order to move away from a certain set of colours and styles, trying not to push any influences on the child I came up with ideas where the styling of the toys is up to the child.

print at homedraw on and fold

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flexible

assembly

Altering toys

child as the

Primary user

easily changeable sets for the play

making stickers at home for alteration

draw on and erase

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Engage the adult in the play

adult as the

Primary user

With the use of existing gametechnology it would be possibleto design a set of games, where the child and adult could either play as a teamor against each other. The challenges in the games could be on separate levels for the child and grown-up.

team play with different physical tasks

competitive game: brainwave control for the adult and physical for the child

creative team effort

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Making adult’s tasks more like play

Time being a challenge for the parents it might be useful to make cleaning or cooking more like play so that the child could participate and learn.

There is already a lot of toys like this and this direction doesn’t necessarily respond to the problem of adults finding play boring.

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Spark the imagination of the adult

adult as the

Primary user Making sets that can be altered for any kind of dramatic play.

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Display story

The story can be viewed during and after playing, the child’s favourite story and characters can be further developed and also understood by the adult. As the story line is more understandable and environment visible it would be easier to engage with dramatic play.

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Scanning the toys into the projection

The game console could include a camera for scanning in any toys or even oneself. Alteration on screen would be possible.

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Sensors and saving the animation

If the animation would belinked with reality by using sensors, anything could become a toy.

Having the game console recording the play might make it easier to stop playing for the child and also easier for the parents to go back to it. Then it would be possible to change the parent to play with as well.Children might also enjoy explaining the story and introducing characters to their parents or friends.

Interface mock-up

This mock-up was made in order to communicate the idea to get feedback. A link to the video was sent to several parents with small children.

Making the mock-up was also beneficial for thinking of the user experience of creating the set for the play. The aim was to make the use as logical and natural as possible, moving paper cut-outs around worked well for this. The projection should react the same way; wiping the buttons out of the way, dragging things in place and so on.

Here the child creates the set and the red character for herself and then calls the parent (red nail polish) to make her own character and to link in the toys by selecting the character and then shaking the sensor to link them together.

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Feedback from parents

“When choosing the character, would it be possible to choose a sound for it as well?”

“A really simple interface works the best for toddlers.”

“I try to keep the play with my daughter quite physical, we for example watch children’s music videos together and dance. I get some exercise out of it and my daughter loves it! I have no interest to really play with toys, but I think all playing is about the parents attitude; one has to set their inner child free to engage with the play with the child.”

“One way to engage parents with the play is learning. Parents find it rewarding when the child learns new words or physical skills as playing.”

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This type of game console could also be used to keep the child entertained without having full focus on the play. If the sensor would be attached to the parents wrist for example it would be possible to for example cook and take brakes to play in-between.

Time challenge

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This game console is a combination on existing technologies. Interactive projections can provide the interface for a computer and react exact and in versatile ways. Sensors could be similar to Speck technology where several sensors are attached onto a person to create a 3D animation. The projection though would appear in 2D and so only needing one sensor per toy. The console could also have speakers and a microphone allowing the players to link sounds to the character and a narrative to the animation.

Technology for the first proposal

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Other half virtual toys

Some children’s toys already combine video games with physical toys like the Skylandres. Here a character is placed on the reader for it to appeal on the screen. New figures need to be purchased to unlock new levels in the game.

I didn’t want to make a game, but a set for free imaginative play. Some advantages of this technology is that the toy also stores information so that it’s possible to play at a friends house with the right skills collected earlier in the game etc.

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Projectors

In order to design the game console itself I looked at the sizes of existing mini projectors, projector based electronics and styling of children’s electronics.

What stood out the most was the Kito projector (concept design) that can be taken apart for more versatile use. The feet are speakers, one arm is a remote control and one has all the necessary plug holes (USB, headphones..). It is possible to link the projector with a laptop, camera or game console for example. The body is a beanbag allowing the projection to be easily adjustable.

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Sketching for interactive projectors

Before settling with the XBox I sketched out some shapes that could be turned around or taken apart. How ever the XBox Kinect provides the technology and more games for the growing children and parents. The projection would just add another function to the gaming experience making it easy for even toddlers to play with their parents.

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Chosen technology; projector, XBox and Kinnect

The synchronisation of the animation with the moving toys or players themselves could be possible with a camera like XBox Kinect. The same camera could provide the touch interface with the projection.

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Screens

As the product is a children’s toy, but also targeted for adults the styling shouldn’t be too naive and most of all it should be really easy to use for both. I aimed for a tidy and calm, but colourful screens.

When trying the interface screens I realised that big gestures are actually quite fun and make more sense as the projection is larger than a screen. The same kind of interface could still be possible, but with bigger gestures.

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Model

The model demonstrates the movement, but I wasn’t pleased with the aesthetics. Making the base wider would make the structure more secure and steady as children will be running around it.

User testing

I tested drawing in Flash together with a 6 year old and his mother. Then adding movement to the drawing. The child enjoyed watching the animation he made and explaining what is going on. He doesn’t like drawing as much as he used to when he was younger, but using the full body for creating something would still be fun for him. Children that are a little bit younger might enjoy creating scenarios where as older children might enjoy the actual play and creating a story more.

Selecting favourite characters from TV and films would be fun for the children as they enjoy their expertise on the tools they use, their friends and adventures and enjoy explaining these to grown-ups.

Potentially it would be possible to buy/ download a sets and characters familiar from the TV.

It should be possible

to import favourite

characters

Younger than 6 years olds probably would enjoy

the free hand drawing more

Watching the made animation was fun for

the child

The child enjoys being in charge,but

the parent can easily suggest

things

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User family: average day

Here the hard working father creates the animation with the six year old Ann after work. Ann started earlier to draw out the set for the story. It is inspired by the history lesson she had at school earlier in the day.

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The play is interrupted by dinner, but continued after. Tom, the father enjoys slipping in historical facts and suggesting the story line to follow historical events. He thinks this is a good way to learn and more fun for him to teach and explain things.Before bedtime the family watches the animation together, Ann being the story teller. The mother sometimes reads a story so that Ann can visualize it at the same time. They both find this rather fun.

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User family: average day

Jack

Jack works from home and likes to take brakes from work to spend time with his four year old son. When he needs some peace he goes to his study room so that Eric knows not to interrupt him. Jack also takes Eric to his grand parents for one day a week in order to work more efficiently.

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Jack works in the mornings and after Eric’s bed time. In the afternoon he finishes up and joins Eric for the play, asking what it is he creating, suggesting more things to add in and telling Eric about his travels in Asia since the created landscape reminded him of Vietnam. The father and son play and chat until Jack goes to do some housework and prepare a meal. Nancy normally takes the dog for a walk with Eric after she comes home from work and reads stories to Eric before bedtime.

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Use of Re-imagination: stand

To begin with the shelf with the game console is pulled to the middle of the floor and the projector and XBox started up. The top of the shelf turns 180° so that the projector can face the same way as the Kinnect, providing the touch interface. This make drawing more accurate and makes it possible to play on the floor even with toddlers.

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Structure

The top of the stand is a separate wooden shelf, in order to make it possible to adjust the projection. The top shelf has a metal bit inside providing the tilting and a metal pole attaches the shelf to the stand itself, but also making the turning possible.

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Use of Re-imagination: interface

As the projector and Kinnect would face the same way it would be possible to use the projection like any touch screen. The game would come with a drawing stick recognized by Kinnect. This would make drawing easier and more accurate.

As playing the drop menus would be navigated trough by using the full body. Holding still for a couple of seconds would be recognized as select.

Scanning in objects or oneself would also be possible with the camera on the Kinnect.

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selected colour shows on the selected item(yellow grass)

back to menu can be navigated by a kick or simply by swipe across as a “go back gesture”

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Re-Imagination is game for the XBox Kinect designed to help the parent engage with imaginative play with their child. As a world can be created together step by step, both the parent and child can be creative together and as favourite toys or TV characters can be implemented into the created set, the child can still feel confident with their expertise on the characters. Display of the play makes it easier to understand the story, possible to save it for later and share it with friends and other family members.

The stand designed can be moved and adjusted making it easy to use the XBox 360° with the Kinect and a projector.

Conclusion

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Big screen makes it easier to interact with the play more remotely when there isn’t time to sit down and play. It’s still possible to see what is going on and ask about the play and suggest next steps in the story line.

As Re-Imagination only provides the set for creative play it can also be used for example teaching or exercising as playing, if the parent wants further benefits.

Touch interface projection on the ground makes it possible for toddlers to try out simple interactions.

Enchances creativity in both child and parent by drawing and creating a narrative.

Children enjoy showing their parents what they have created, this would be easy as the story can be played afterwards and created world explored. Listening to a story would be an effortless way to spend time together and better for the child than watching TV.

Benefits