Murmuration

• Invoke thought and solve a specific design problem.

• Introduce a new concept or be a new form of investigation of an old concept.

• Include a design approach to a particular problem and use a chosen medium accordingly.

• Articulates a deep, thorough and subtle understanding of craftsmanship and the technical skills chosen for the work and in the execution of the work and its presentation.

• Displays, with confidence, a thorough knowledge of the subject matter and an insightful understanding of the process of idea development; demonstrates a successful positioning of that idea in relation to the viewer.

• Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of design by comparing and contrasting your work to historic and contemporary practices in art and design.

Although it took me a while to narrow down my focus, I was motivated to create something that could make a difference in the lives of refugee children and their families. 

Unfortunately, there has been a lot going against refugees, and children being over half that population makes it that much more devastating. Children are the future, and we have the ability to give them so much. I feel that it is our responsibility to lend a helping hand anywhere we can.

Creativity has the ability to foster and be the outlet to so many different people and in so many different ways. Studies show that creativity has the power to relieve anxiety and influence positive thinking. Children that have been distressed often times withhold a lot of what they have experienced internally. Having children participate with creative outlets allows for them to develop coping mechanisms. 

“Provide children with opportunities to understand and cope better with the sources of their distress through creative techniques such as drawing and music, writing, talking, or play.” (Vostanis)

Pairing two children together, similar to a pen-pal system, has also been proven to be quite beneficial. Benefits including; reading and writing skills, social skills such as understanding differing perspectives and lifestyles, and building empathy towards others. Likewise, introducing diversity into the lives of children when they are in the developmental stage has been linked to having an open mind, being compassionate, and less susceptible to being discriminatory towards others.

Nouman was two days from turning 18 years old when he got thrown into the back of a government military truck in Kabul, Afghanistan. As a part of the law, boys get drafted into the war the moment they turn 18 years old, without any say or notice from the corrupted government. For six months, his family had no idea where he was. They searched and searched until they got the news that he got sent to a different province. Nouman was given permission to visit his family just once for three hours before he was sent off again.

Four months later, he was laying in his tent trying to rest when he kept hearing soldiers shooting off their guns late at night.  He stuck his head out to tell them it was late and he wanted to rest. They continued to do as they pleased, so he stuck his head out again, but they still continued. When he stuck his head out for the third time, he barely finished telling them to stop before his head became their target. The last memory his 12 year old sister, Giti, has of him was seeing his body returned with his severed head. Nouman had been a father figure, so she was left feeling lost and confused to the point where her purpose of living faded since she thought she was going to end up the same way. Giti internalized her trauma throughout the years, ultimately marrying and raising three daughters, Aiysha, Nilab, and myself.  

Although she moved to the States when she was older, her sense of home and belonging was missing and she wished there was anything that could make her feel welcome.

To help children interact and connect with one another in order to create healthy relationships that promote developmental skills.

Having conducted primary research, I narrowed the focus and direction of my project. I will be creating a service that will allow refugee children in Denver, Colorado to connect with children that have been established within the community for the purpose of building a relationship with one another.

Since the issue of accessibility was mentioned during my initial testing, the service will be adapted in either a library or school program which will allow for easy accessibility to the technology for all children. As for tightening my target audience, the age group I will be designing for will be children between the ages of 6-12 years. Having this in mind will keep my project grounded and feasible with the platform usability and the level of aesthetic. In order to create a service that will be appealing to children, I took under consideration what other services for children provide and decided to include a variety of different options such as the ability to write to each other, color, draw, play games, and do activities with one another. 

In order to approach this project in a matter that would be most successful for product development at this stage, I will be creating a MVP (minimum viable product) which will be focused on the child audience.

CARD SORT EXERCISES

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Having kept the child role in mind while creating the minimum viable product has allowed me to create a very simplistic path and design in order for it to be easily understandable for children. With that being said, difficulties arise when getting feedback from the perspective of a refugee child.  Therefore, in order to receive as much viable feedback as possible, I created a use case, user-testing questions, and the prototype that I was able to test with 11 participants.

I wanted to make sure I tested and validated my designs with children as well. However, there are many legalities involving children and testing, therefore I used my eight year old sister as a tester in which we sat down and went through the Invision prototype together.

I predominantly received positive responses when users went through the first prototype. The majority did mention the lack of user interface when it came to elements that would excite children such as bright colors and characters that were fun but understood that this was not the stage for that. An idea also came up of implementing the ability for the children to schedule a play date where they could meet in-person could lead to a stronger bond between the children while “making their experience together a reality, so to say.” 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Remove the child email and replace age with date of birth on the sign-up screen, which could also allow for the platform to be tailored to different age groups. 

• Add in primary language into the sign-up process which could allow for the site to be translated to other languages if need be. 

• Take a look at different video chatting applications such as; Facetime, Skype, and Google Hangouts for pointers towards how I should approach the design for the connected experience.

According to the article Designing Storytelling Technologies to Encouraging Collaboration Between Young Children, “The approach of encouraging collaboration is intended to combine the educational goal of learning collaboration skills with our design philosophy of giving children control as much as possible.” When designing for children it is important to keep the user-flow very simple and easily understandable. Visuals need to be more prominent than text, and the sizing of all the elements need to be taken under consideration in every step of creation. In The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide, when the design process was being discussed, it continuously emphasized the importance of always keeping the target audience in mind. I made sure to look at current applications of digital platforms that are for children to better understand what makes them successful.

PREDOMINANT COMMONALITIES:

• A simple interface

• Bright colors

• Large buttons

• Small amounts of text

• Medium to large size fonts

• Fun and exciting elements

• Clear cut and minimal steps

logo and design elements