children growth informatics

CHILDREN GROWTHINFORMATICSPhoto source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/eusoudaniel/2344561300/

Photo source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/eusoudaniel/6816229366

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/2527797383

INTRODUC-TION

The design problem is around personal in-formatics. I began my work with interviews and observations. I conducted four online interviews and four phone interviews with parents and children. In total, there are four parents and two children getting involved in this study. Then I started my collection of exemplars of personal informatics tools, and made design critiques on those tools. During the research, I found that nowa-days, more are more parents begin to take

records to track the growth of their chil-dren. The varieties of tools that parents use are also growing, especially in the age of 21 century. What did parents tracking? What tools did they use? What are they ex-pecting from the cutting-edge technology? What could I do to help them design better tools to track the growth and development of their children?


Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/4257485778/in/set-72157594175279017

INTERVIEWPARENTS

In order to get a better idea about parents’ concerns and problems, I interviewed with five parents. Four of them are from the Unit-ed Stated, one is from China. Most (60%) of them have two children, 20% have three and another 20% have only one daughter. Interview questions in this round of survey are mostly about parenting and the usage of personal informatics tools on parenting and keeping records for children. Con-sider, for instance, the questions include:

the name of tools, the advantages and dis-advantages of those tools. It turns out that most parents care about the growth of their children very much and would love to find more convenient tools. Most of them are still using pens and notebooks to keep re-cords. Most parents will keep record of the height, weight and head size of children, as well as the progress children are making, (potting training, rolling over, crawling, walking, vocalizing, first words, laughing,

learning alphabet, and numbers jump-ing, running, emotional aspects, imaginary play). After conducting this round of inter-view, I got lots of great insights and began to generate design concepts.



COLLECTION

Then I began to collect the tools that are now used for children informatics. Most of my collections are mobile apps or web-sites. Most of the style of those design are focused on the digital version of logs, or digital album. Seldom design integrate the physical stuff that children use in daily life with the digital technology. This finding narrows my design direction again. I start-ed sketching and prototyping on some of my concepts.

[1]

[3] [4][2]

[1] Cry Translater http://itunes.apple.com/app/cry-translator/id332636983?mt=8

[2] Baby Loghttp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/baby-log-activities-growth/id401112090?mt=8

[3] Baby Journal http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/similac-baby-journal/id409894248?mt=8

[4] Baby Timerhttp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/baby-timer/id315692413?mt=8


LITERATURE

After the first round of interview, I did my literature review and read the book: The Design of Children’s technology (Druin, 1998). [1] In the second chapter--Kids of Informants, Mike and Yvonne posed the question”How to get children involved in the design process” and the benefits of children involvement. This inspires me to reach another group--children. [2] Allison Druin, The Design of Children’s

Technology,1998http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/classes/

techcog02/readings/kidsasinformants.pdf


Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanieriani/6982440191/

INTERVIEWCHILDREN

Then I did my second round of interview with three students who are in their age of 23, 24 and 26. I asked them to recall their childhood memory, how their parents track their growth, which part of memory is the most cherished, what kinds of in-formation that they want to record. From the children’s point of view, it turns out that more interesting information need to be recorded, consider, for instance, the changing hair style, the distance that they

are away from home, the collection of toys, the games that they played, etc. From this point, my scope of problem changed from the parenting tools for baby to the children growth informatic tools.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ pinksherbet/6962346249

INSIGHTSPhoto source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/305742748

RECORD EMOTION CLOSENESS1. Parents would like to take as much and as specific of their children’s information as possible. “Height, weight, head size, developmental things like rolling over, crawling, walking, vocalizing, first words, laughing, learning alphabet”

2. There is a big room of improvement on the digital devices to help parents record their children’s information.“We haven’t used any apps, though it would be an interesting way to record the information.”

3. It would be convenient to intergrate dig-ital devices with children’s everyday stuff.

4. Growth record could trigger strong emo-tion, especially for parents and children.

5. Childhood memory is a good source to trigger emotion.

6. The development of digital technology helps people to take record of memory and emotion.

7. Growth record is a good way to foster closeness among family members.“Looking at the world through the eye of a kid is just great.”

8. Parents enjoy raising children and would like to grow with their children“Everyday’s a brand new adventure!”

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ pinksherbet/6816232762

SYSTEMPhoto source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/5063192237

OF CONCEPTS

TREE STATION

INTERACTION CRAWLING MAT

SOUND SCARF

WORD MAP

MILKING BOTTLE

HAIRSTYLE MIRROR

EMOTION ANALYSIS BABYCART

BETTER SLEEP PILLOW

CONNECTION OUTFIT

SISTER-BROTHER BADGE

RECORD EMOTION CLOSENESS

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mar1lyn84/5285634833

CONCEPTSPhoto source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/6733392791

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adwriter/398229892

This trees station is the place for children to measure their height and weight. Also, there is a 3D camera on the tree, when the kid approaching the tree, it will take a picture of the kid and take down the infor-mation of the current height, weight, head

size, etc of the kid. After that, a new leaf with image and information will growing on the tree and be put on the same height of the kid. 1

TREE STATION

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ zupidesign/4150418434

This interaction crawling mat is designed for help children to learn how to crawl and walk. Children could follow the trace of the moving image on the interactive mat and use his hands and feet to touch it. After the kid get to the point, a new point will ap-

pear on the mat. At the same time, the mov-ing trace and the total pace of children will be recorded and sent to parents. 2

INTERACTION CRAWLING MAT

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zupidesign/4138044569

This scarf could function as a recorder. When kids wear the scarf, it could take some sound randomly and mark the time and place of the sound. This collection of sound in different age will be sent to a sound memory box. Parents of kid could

go back to this sound memory box and re-play those sounds. 3

SOUND SCARF

This design will keep record of where and when the kid speak one word in the first time. For instance, the kid speak ”apple ” when he was two in the city garden and speak of “gauge” on his way to the market. These information will be recorded. After

the kid growing up and look back at this map, he will find it interesting and get a lot of memories of his childhood. 4

WORD MAP

This bottle could collect the information of baby drinking milk. It could make analy-sis on the eating habits of the kid and push notification to parents if something unusu-al happens. 5

MILKING BOTTLE

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zupidesign/ 4138809674

Young girls usually make a lot of changes on their hair style, with this mirror, it will keep record of the changing hair styles of girls in their childhood and put all the in-formation into a hairstyle album. 6

HAIRSTYLE MIRROR

When baby is too young to speak, it’s usu-ally hard to get his needs or emotion. They could only laugh or cry. Different sound of laughing and crying have different mean-ing. This emotion analysis baby cart has the function to make analysis about baby’s

emotion. There is a webcam placed on the top of the cart. It could take records of the facial expression and gestures of the baby in the cart and match the expression with the information in database and find what is the exact emotion of the baby. At the 7

EMOTION ANALYSIS BABYCART


same time, the result will be sent to parents if they are not in the same room of their ba-bies. Parents could see the result and know what’s going on.

This pillow is designed to help children get a better sleep. It could make analysis based on the brainwave of the kids. When the kid is going to wake up and have some specific needs, the information could be sent to the mobile devices of parents. Also,

the pillow will take record of the sleeping information of children. 8

BETTER SLEEP PILLOW

This design intends to foster closeness be-tween parents and children. When they are in the same place, the color and texture of the clothes will become the same. The color is decided by the body temperature and emotion of the child. The parents could

get an idea about the body condition and some subtle changes of their kids. 9

CONNECTION OUTFIT

This design is the encourage system be-tween sisters and brothers. Kids could win a random badge if they win over their brothers and sisters on better eating habit, more outdoor activities, etc. 10

SISTER-BROTHER BADGE

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zupidesign/4149659129

HONGYUAN JIANG2012.4


children growth informatics

Documents