Activision X Adobe
Guiding Parents in Finding the Right Games for their Kids
With the plethora of video games on the market, the challenge of finding age-appropriate games for your child has never been more challenging. PlayPal is a mobile application that helps parents navigate this endless list of games and select the best games for their children.
PlayPal was an entry to the Adobe x Activision Creative Jam where we placed 4th out of 305 teams from the US, UK, and Canada. In this hackathon, we were briefed to design an experience to help new gamers acquainted and integrated into the community. I joined this hackathon alongside 2 of my classmates in the MHCID program - Andy Lin and Christelle Valmores. Our name was Dream Team. See the overall results and scores in the link below:
https://assets.adobe.com/public/b7e508d5-10e4-4af1-7450-be3ced472a1d
Role:
Product Designer (1 of 3)
Timeline:
May 2020 (48hrs)
Tools:
Adobe XD
Research
Understanding how parents approach gaming for their children
Within an extremely limited timeframe (48hrs), we narrowed down on our main target audience, parents, and interviewed parents with young children we had access to on short notice. Key questions we looked into included:
- What factors do you consider when purchasing games for your children?
- How do you purchase games for your children?
- How do games benefit your children?
Getting an industry perspective
Additionally, we also had access to a senior art director from Mattel who we interviewed. This interview gave us relevant insights on how parents purchase games/toys for their children and what are the underlying motivations for these purchases.
Key Interview Findings
- Parents are the ultimate gatekeeper when it comes to game purchases. Children can influence them but the parent usually has a disproportional say in what games to purchase.
- Parents have issue understanding if the game is fits their child's current abilities. General ratings based on age are too general as a guide now.
- Benefits of children playing games include promoting creativity, building brain processing speeds and memorization, and encouraging social behavior. Parents are looking into games embody these benefits most of the time.
We distilled the findings and organized them into grouped topics. The team voted on topics that felt actionable and resonated with us. These topics were mainly centered on:
- Finding age-appropriate games for children in terms of cognitive and dexterity abilities or limitations.
- Building social relationships between parent to child and child to child
Framing the Problem
Parents often find it difficult when purchasing games for their little ones. There is a lack of information on games’ descriptions and ratings to inform parents when making game purchases. Game reviews alleviate that issue but are often too generic in their recommendations. Parents want the games to relate towards their child’s development while considering their current abilities.
How might we help parents find the best games for their child based on the child's current skills and knowledge?
Product Goals
We want to connect parents to games that encourage positive child development while ensuring that game suggestions take into account the child’s current abilities. Additionally, we want the application to increase the child’s social skills with their parents and possibly other children.
Key Assumptions
- This experience is designed for parents with children aged 10 and younger.
- Games will come from all platforms i.e. Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, iOs App, and Google Play stores etc.
- Understand and account the access points of these platform stores and how will user get there.
User Personas
Using the insights from our research, we created series of user personas that best reflect user needs and goals.
User Flows
With limited time and so many possibilities on how we can solve this challenge, we committed the following priorities in our minimum viable product:
- Parent determine child’s goals
- Child’s ability assessed through mini-games
- List of game recommendations and ability to purchase
- Track child’s game activities
- Set up and Find Play Pals
Here are the key user flows we established:
Design Iterations and Considerations
Reflecting on the research insights and initial user flow, the team conducted a digital co-working session to generate a series of wireframes that best reflect the user flows and concerns. Here are some highlights from our wireframes and the intent behind the designs:
Solution
After wire-framing out the overall design intents and user flows, the team huddled together for an internal critique and decided on the desired overall aesthetic of the product. Considering that the application is targeted toward parents who educated themselves about their children's games, we eventually landed on something visually cheery while maintaining an objective and helpful tone. Here are a series of vignettes showcasing how our solution solved fr the goals we had earlier established.
Defining Parents' Goals for Child
Parents can create a profile for each child and select goals to cultivate. The goals are grouped into 2 categories; education and social skills like competition, leadership, character resilience, math/logic, culture, and more. This will ensure that game suggestions align with parents’ intention behind purchasing games.
Child's Ability Assessment via Mini-Games
Through the use of mini-games as an assessment to test a child's dexterity and cognitive skills, we prevent parents from presumptuously determining their child’s ability. Instead, Playpal can assist in suggesting games based on the child's level of capability. These mini-games are based on pediatrics and occupational therapy games suggestions that assess a child's cognitive and motor physical skills.
Easy Purchase via Store
After indicating goals and the child’s assessment, parents will be given a list of game suggestions that aligns with their intentions/goals. Parents can review the ratings, descriptions of each game, and goals, and purchase the game on the platform based on the respective online stores. (Playstation Store, Xbox App, Nintendo eShop or iOS app store, and Google Play Store)
Find a Playpal
Based on their game purchases, parents can see other parents who have purchased the game within a certain mile radius. They can set up virtual play dates to increase the child’s social skills. When finding a play pal, they will see a list of parents finding fellow play pals for their child, and submit a request for a playdate.
Results
We made it into the top 10 with a score of the 97 out of 100. In the finals, we placed 4th out of 305 teams in USA, UK, and Canada.
The breakdown of our score was:
Audience: 24.5/25
Innovation: 24.5/25 (We had the highest grade for innovation)
User Experience: 24.5/25
Design: 23.5/25
See the results here
By making it into the top 10, we had an amazing opportunity to receive feedback from a panel of judges from Adobe and Activision.
Key feedback from the judges included:
"I really appreciate the idea of using mini games as a mode of assessment. It allows parents to engage their child in the process of better understanding their abilities."
"The design is clean and succinct with a good balance of fun and objectivity."
"Connecting the app to the various play stores of the different platforms might be a legal/logistical struggle to execute, but it will really elevate the experience if done right."
Next Steps
With the judge's feedback in mind, the team outlined the following as possible next steps in this endeavor:
Unpack game store connectivity
Explore more on how PlayPal can redirect purchases to various gaming platforms’ game store apps. For example, a click to purchase a recommended game on the Playstation Store would open the game’s respective page on the Playstation Store on the TV screen. It will also be worth investigating how other platforms like Steam or Epic Games do it from a UX perspective.
Explore more child assessment methods
Have a more granular take on child assessment methodology based on a child’s age and needs. New methods of assessments can be devised based on new pioneering research in the field of child development studies.
Improve and add features for play date functionality
Expand playdate matching rubric beyond selected game and availability. Such rubrics could include child development goals, multiplayer options, and other customizable needs.
Reflection
The creative jam allowed us to really stretch our lean UX skills and deliver a product in the midst of an extremely tight deadline and constraints. As a team, we were able to distill UX research efforts and translate those findings into meaningful product flows that resonated with the judges and peers.
It was an honor to be selected as a finalist and to present to such a large audience in a global context. The succinct/targeted feedback from the judges was especially enlightening and insightful. Above all, this project had also exposed me to the spheres of gaming and education, outlining the latent connections between these two industries.
Thanks to *Dream Team* - Christelle Valmores and Andy Lin. It was a dream working with these two extremely outstanding product designers! Additionally, I want to thank Adobe and Activision for giving us this platform to explore our methods and showcase our skills!
