Teaching the importance of good habits to children
Get Into Good
Habits With Pals
Objective
Habit Pals is a learning tool developed to teach kids ages 6–10 the importance of good hygiene and tidying.
In the early stages of child development, life skills such as personal hygiene and organizational practices significantly impact the development of social skills. Educating young children on these practices promotes better cognition and develops a well-rounded mind. Unfortunately, some children fall short of being taught these skills. We aim create a system in which children learn the importance of these essential practices.
Process
Through group discussion, the idea to create something fun and immersive for children was the direction we collectively agreed on. With that we explored what exactly we wanted to create. As a group we knew that children's minds are constantly absorbing new information. So introducing important habits such as picking up after themselves or hand hygiene at a early age would benefit future discussions on the importance of these concepts to the child.
Target User
As we begin establishing a direction for our project we wanted this experience to span a wider demographic. The education system in America is not well equipped to meet all children's needs. This means that marginalized communities and lower income families suffer due to this. Our goal was to create something that could help bridge gaps in educating children on these habits and possibly expanding the format to core subjects like math or history.
Process
The first two weeks of the project were dedicated to research and brainstorming.
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white-boarding,
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group discussion
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storyboards
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mood-boards
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secondary research
Concept
A narrative driven map that guided the young learner through a house in which they could explore and learn. This journey was broken into a episodic format in which the user in first person would enter rooms and encounter animal counterparts practicing good habits. With tools such as alliteration and meter the child's mind would be engaged in meaningful and fun ways.
Research
Through secondary research our team discovered that young learners develop better through learning devices such a mimicking and meter. With this we chose to have each character practice the habit they are promoting and connect a passage to each animal. To better form the connection in the young learners mind.
We also found that certain typefaces aid young readers in learning to read and write.
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Century Old Style
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Cooper Black
These two typefaces ensured our project would meet the needs of the children and would create a familiar setting to foster growth not only in habits but in reading.
Each space has two elements that coincide with two small passages that promote the child to participate in the same practice as the character.
Next Steps
Solution
The landing page was designed to invite the user to interact with different rooms. we chose to create a open doll house that depicts the rooms so that the child can see there is a whole house to explore.
Chloe the Crocidile
We chose to expand on two characters/rooms.
Chloe promotes the importance of dental hygiene with the help of her friend Kyle.
Riley the Raccoon
Riley the raccoon practices hand hygiene and food safety. Both crucial practices that can help prevent infection and cross contamination of food .
Once the user reads the passage they wil be prompted to choose the next passage or can explore more rooms.
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Audio to aid readers with processing the text on the screen
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Multilingual options for non-native english speakers or ESL programs.
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Include core school subjects such as math, history, and science
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Create opportunities for caregivers and parents to participate at home.