We took in what we were told in our formative assessment and started trying to really work behaviour in and try to make it something appropriate for children.
We definately moved to designing for purely kindergarten children. We knew that the older the child, the less effective a toy would be with it.
We were looking at induvidual toys for the kids. We discussed things like whether they went home or not, whether there were any docking systems or pidgeon holes for the to be stored in. We heavily discussed the educational aspect but mixing it in with fun.
Some of the original ideas involved a set of animals and you got assigned a certain animal, or a blank canvas and a part of the daily routine was coming in and 'constructing' your animal. So it could be some sort of monsterous creation that was fun and silly to them and everyday they could personalise it and make weird and wonderful, wacky creations.
We kept bringing back the fact that this can't be scarring for the child. It can't be creepy, harmful, fostering the wrong behavioural characteristics. It's so hard to make sure that idea you come up with aren't in the slightest CREEPY. It seemed that everything we thought of involved some element of weird.
We wanted to steer clear of the judgements on behavioural activities and thought about times of eating, and whether they slept during nap time, or if they sucessfully made it to the bathroom or not. Or just in general what activities they completed that day
Having trouble with the physical side of the design, we did more investigation into our users.
We chose kindergarten children aged 4 years. We looked into exactly what they can do and what their stage of delvelopment is up to.
According to Piaget, they are in their egocentric stage but at 4 yeard old they are beginning to learn and head into understanding other peoples points of view etc.
Here are some sites on a 4 year old's developement:
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/child_development_4-5_years_-_cyh.html/context/567
http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/four/index.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive%20development.pdf
http://www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html
We definately moved to designing for purely kindergarten children. We knew that the older the child, the less effective a toy would be with it.
We were looking at induvidual toys for the kids. We discussed things like whether they went home or not, whether there were any docking systems or pidgeon holes for the to be stored in. We heavily discussed the educational aspect but mixing it in with fun.
Some of the original ideas involved a set of animals and you got assigned a certain animal, or a blank canvas and a part of the daily routine was coming in and 'constructing' your animal. So it could be some sort of monsterous creation that was fun and silly to them and everyday they could personalise it and make weird and wonderful, wacky creations.
We kept bringing back the fact that this can't be scarring for the child. It can't be creepy, harmful, fostering the wrong behavioural characteristics. It's so hard to make sure that idea you come up with aren't in the slightest CREEPY. It seemed that everything we thought of involved some element of weird.
We wanted to steer clear of the judgements on behavioural activities and thought about times of eating, and whether they slept during nap time, or if they sucessfully made it to the bathroom or not. Or just in general what activities they completed that day
Having trouble with the physical side of the design, we did more investigation into our users.
We chose kindergarten children aged 4 years. We looked into exactly what they can do and what their stage of delvelopment is up to.
According to Piaget, they are in their egocentric stage but at 4 yeard old they are beginning to learn and head into understanding other peoples points of view etc.
Here are some sites on a 4 year old's developement:
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/child_development_4-5_years_-_cyh.html/context/567
http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/four/index.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive%20development.pdf
http://www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html
The data side of the design had to also be accessable by the teachers and we thought perhaps the parents too- as they are interested and concerned with their childs development and education.
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