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Reflection

This semester was extremely challenging – It was a drastic shift working with such an ambiguous brief and having to self-select an issue. I initially struggled on settling on an issue and considered Empathy, Design Thinking in Education, Computational Thinking for children, etc. Upon deciding on Empathy, my focus quickly pivoted towards focusing on Emotional Literacy due to insights generated through the discovery phase. Whilst I don’t mind pivoting my view point, I am concerned that my project may appear as disjointed. Upon further research my project pivoted again to incorporate Te-reo, and this was based off the co-creation sessions hosted and research into childhood mental illness. I found that my issue constantly evolved throughout this project.

Another issue I faced was like Empathy, Childhood Mental illness is a complicated and broad problem. Throughout my Design Process, I’ve made it very clear that I don’t believe that my solution will solve this crisis alone – but instead will provide children with the opportunity to learn about complex emotions and how to effectively manage them.

I was glad that I challenged myself to work on a non-digital solution, despite having a preference to work digitally. This proved to be extremely difficult as managing prototypes and making updates was a lot more time consuming compared to previous digital projects I have completed. I’m extremely pleased with how I managed and tracked the content (questions for Feelings and How Might You Feel If… cards, and the list of emotions). This was an extremely effective way of monitoring changes to the content and viewing the response of testing sessions on the work – it is a method that I will use in other projects.

The user testing sessions were invaluable and impacted the development of my design. The collaboration sessions with the children were critical in the development of the character set, which was confirmed to be extremely successful in the second round of user testing.

I was a little bit overwhelmed towards the end of this project. I find it difficult to manage my time and effort between iterating my prototype to reflect the feedback from the second round of user testing, completing the contextual document and making the video pitch. I’m content with the output, however I would like to develop this idea further as the character’s need further development (poor expressions of different emotions). I’m impressed with the final video pitch given all the struggles and roadblocks I had. I think that the stop motion is interesting and is more engaging than previous videos I’ve made – and it also matches the unique and quirky nature of my product. I also think that the symbolism and abstract forms used were effective in conveying my solution.

To conclude this semester has been a challenge, however I believe that I’ve learnt several new skills and I look forward to working on my next studio project.

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Please click on the title above to view my video. Thanks :)

Music:

‘Breakfast alone’ sourced from https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

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Contextual Document

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1K3h-ju17MG3jkzqlx1eLJJdwp92aLi2F

I struggled completing the Contextual Document due to problems with Printing. The images within the final printed document are blurry. I attempted to resolve this problem by taking the photographs again, and re-exporting the document, however, did this not improve the print quality of these images. Here is a link to my contextual document, if you wish to view the pictures digitally. (The digital version has been saved as spreads).

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Planning the video

As I failed to get permission to record the testing sessions with parents and children, and because I didn’t have a digital prototype, planning this video was extremely difficult. I struggled to think of how I would demonstrate the different games and the features and benefits of the product, as it was a non-digital. I decided to look for inspiration to help with planning my video and understanding how I could convey my prototype without showing footage of it being used. I began investing stop motion and collages – and this formed the inspiration for my video.

This inspired a unique and odd take on my pitch, were I focused on using symbolism and common New Zealand icons, and abstract shapes to visually convey my script. Below is a brainstorm of my video and the different compositions.

Video Breakdown:

I decided to work with a frame rate of 12 frames per second, even though the standard frame rate is 30 frames per second. I completed these frames digitally in photoshop and imported them into After Effects to create the compositions. This was an extremely time-consuming process however, I was pleased with the output. Below are some frames and a brief explanation of the symbolism used in them.

Above: This frame demonstrates the complex and dark emotions that I child may feel, and this is visualised through the dark abstract textured shapes. I considered using a child that looked sad, however I wanted to create a stark contrast between the complex emotions and the emotion vocabulary of children.

Above: This frame demonstrates the mislabelling of the emotions, by visualising the dark emotions as previously discussed and by introducing the card with sad written on it.

Above: This section of the video is dedicated towards contextualising the issue. In this frame the hand on the right-hand side represents New Zealand and is demonstrated through the Kiwi symbolism (Sky tower, Auckland landscape, etc). The squiggly line is an abstract visualation of mental health. The hand on the left-hand side represents Māori.

Above: I visually communicated Act the Feelings out by creating a stage collage and using hand written speech bubbles to mimic what happens during the game.

Above: To demonstrate how the Feelings cards work, I used hand written speech bubbles to show responses that children may say in relation to the two cards on the screen.

Above: To demonstrate the How Might You Feel If card game, I selected a How Might You Feel If question and a portion of the cards. I then used hand drawn frames to show which emotions someone may select in response to the card.

Above: This frame visually depicts the integration of English and Māori. The diamond is used to reflect the multifaceted approach, and the cards connected around it communicate how the games are interrelated.

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Pitch planning

Keryn tasked us with creating a practice pitch in preparation for our final video pitch. I struggled with this immensely as pitches I have down for my commerce degree have been focused on the customer, problem and solution but have also taken into consideration the market environment and financials. I struggled to remove this association and found that my initial pitch sounded more like a business pitch as opposed to a design pitch, as it focused on revenue and distribution of the product. I then decided to take a step back and review the notes Keryn gave us and brainstorm how I might structure my pitch.

I found the brainstorming to be extremely helpful in planning my pitch and categorizing the content. My pitch is as below:

Introduction to the problem:

Emotions colour our world. They can go from bright and exuberant to somber and dull. Like adults, children or rangatahi experience a range of complex emotions such as Depression, Abandonment, Inferiority, Anxiety and Vulnerability. But unlike their adult counterparts’ children don’t have the vocabulary to express their emotions and would mislabel the previous as ‘sad’.

Contextualising the impacts of the problem and providing statistics. (Disclaimer: I’m not saying that a lack of emotional intelligence and literacy are the only contributing causes to childhood mental illness. Instead I’m evidencing why it’s critical to help children identify their emotions, develop healthy coping strategies and increase their comfort with expressing their emotions so they can get the help they need).

Why should you care? Society is facing a silent crisis, an epidemic of childhood mental illness. According to a report completed by Unicef, Aotearoa has the highest suicide rate of developed countries, with Māori suicide rates being nearly twice as high compared to Non-Māori. However, no Te Reo specific content for Emotional Intelligence exists.

Target user – identifying their needs and wants. Also addressing how social workers and teachers address emotional literacy – books and activity sheets.

Social workers such as Maria, and troubled youth like Tama are affected by this problem. Maria needs a tool to help Tama understand the range of emotions he feels, and to discuss how he might mediate them. But Tama doesn’t want to talk about his feelings. He also doesn’t understand why every book and activity sheet Maria has given to him has been in English. He wants to see a language familiar to him, even if it’s only small phrases

Introduction to the solution and benefits of each product.

iMaha is an exciting game that integrates te-reo, into a card set of three activities.

Emotion Charades: This game serves as the foundation for the other two activities. It provides opportunities for children to increase their understanding, vocabulary and perceptual knowledge of different emotions through a collaborative and creative activity.

Feelings Cards: This activity challenge’s children to contextualise the different emotions they may come across – asking children to reflect on their behaviour, and what coping strategies they might use to handle different scenarios. The focus of this game is to help children concentrate on developing effective and healthy coping strategies.

How Might You Feel If…This activity requires children to select up to three emotions that reflect how they would feel, in response to a ‘How Might You Feel If…’ game card.

Point of differentiation of the solution – using feedback from user testing as evidence.

iMaha is the first fun integrated solution which focuses on the emotional development of Aotearoa’s rangitahi, specifically focusing on Māori. iMaha takes a multifaceted approach towards Emotional Literacy and Intelligence and embodies primary emotions as characters. From user testing sessions, iMaha was described as collaborative, engaging, educational and fun by both adult and child participants.

Call to action

Aotearoa is responsible to foster manakitanga and rangatiratanga of our rangitahi. Invest in iMaha and be part of the change for an improved quality of life for all rangatahi.

I’ve incorporated te-reo into my pitch to reflect the focus of integrating Māori into English. I’m concerned and worried that this may be deemed as unprofessional or inappropriate, as non- Māori speakers may not understand what the specific phrases mean. However, given the context and the focus of my project is Māori rangatahi development and the normalisation of Māori, I believe that it would present my project as being insincere and superficial. Unfortunately, I was unable to get feedback on my pitch, as I was in hospital with my father for that class session.

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Naming the project

To complete an effective pitch, I realised I needed to have a name for the product/solution I was trying to sell. I completed a brainstorm of different ideas, attempting to make modern names that were Misspellings (like Lyft and Flickr) or Compound words (like Fedex and Instagram). I initially decided on the name iEmotion. A word play on the personal pronoun ‘I’ and Emotional Intelligence (EQ). I then reviewed the name and realised that it sounded like a boring activity and would be perceived by children as an educational activity as opposed to a game. I also realised that it didn’t reflect the Māori focus of my project, and that it would be unlikely to resonate with Māori rangatahi. I then listed down all the different Maori words for emotion on the brainstorm. I selected Mahamaha (which means inner emotions), as it was the easiest to pronounce for non-Māori speakers. I then shortened iMahamaha down to iMaha, to remove the connotations of education activities for Māori speakers (this is because Maori children may perceive iMahamaha to be an education activity, rather than a game as Mahamaha means inner emotions).

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Iteration 3

I decided to complete further amendments to my prototype. I experimented with different card sizes. (The original card size is on the right). I ended up selecting the middle card size as the large card size was ridiculously big. The size of the slightly larger card (middle) will not impact the usability of the cards, as a child or adult will hold no more than three cards at a given time (they will never have to hold a deck of cards. 

I experimented with tracking to help children sound out the words. I experimented with 20 (original size), 60, and 240. I decided to select the middle option as the right handsome felt extremely spaced out and distant. 

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Second Round of User Testing

I conducted a second round of user testing to revalidate content and understand whether the developments to my project were successful or not. I was particularly interested in understanding whether the colour coding by primary emotion was effective and whether parents preferred the new card set over the old card set. I also wanted to understand the thoughts and feelings of children on the new characters and get feedback on the phonetic spelling and instruction manual. I narrowed down my testing group for the second round of testing to 4 adults, and 4 children – this was due to the unavailability of the other participants. The insights generated from the second round of user testing is outlined below:

Insight 01: 

The instructional placemat does not have any inherent value. 3 of the 4 adult participants preferred a traditional instruction set and suggested that the instructions should be in the form of a manual or a card as part of the different card decks.

Verbatim included: “I get where you’re going with this, but I just don’t think it’s very effective – it made the game hard to transport compared to just cards, and I feel like kids would absolutely destroy the board.”

Insight 02: 

The phonetic spelling of Māori words was successful. The 2 non-māori participants said it helped remove their fear of pronouncing the words incorrectly, and that they felt more inclined to attempt to use the te-reo versions of emotions.

Verbatim included:“This is extremely helpful. I’m a white kiwi male and pronouncing Māori words is a fear of mine, but I think this would help a-lot. I’d still feel like a bit of a Muppet, but it wouldn’t be as scary as trying to pronounce it without the Māori phonetic spelling.”

Insight 03: 

The card size was reported as being too small. All 4 of the 4 adults, and 3 of the 4 children wanted a jumbo card size.

Verbatim included:“The cards feel small – they seem more like poker cards, rather than game cards.”

“I can’t really see the picture, you should make them bigger.”

Insight 04: 

Both children and adult participants preferred the new characters over the old character set, and approved the new set of emotions and questions.

Verbatim included: “These are cool! My favorite is the green one”

“I have to say, I quite like the characters. They’re very quirky.”

“Colour-coding the emotions like Inside out is smart, I actually prefer that over the positive and negative colour-coding I suggested.”

Insight 05: 

2 of the 4 adults suggested that the typeface shouldn’t be bold and that the letters should be spaced further apart to help children sound the words out.

Verbatim included:“The bold is very in your face and kind of seems like a toddler’s card. Maybe you should tone it down.”

“I feel like you should make the gaps between the letters bigger, so children can kind of sound out the words. This would be good for both languages.”

The second user testing session was extremely successful and provided me with further opportunities for design development. Once again I struggled to get consent to get parents to give their permission to audio record or video record their interviews – however I understand their concerns as parents. Following on from this I will make a final iteration to my low fidelity prototype. Areas that I will focus on will include:

Increasing the size of the card

Experiment with the tracking and kerning of the typography to encourage the sounding out of words.

I decided to not focus on the layout of the instruction manual - as I believe it’s starting to push the boundary of visual design. 

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Instruction development

I attempted to develop the instruction set of my project, creating a hybrid model of a game placemat. I thought that the placemat and showing the users how to set up and where to place the cards would make the game easier to understand and set up. As you can see below, I created three different placemats, one for each game.

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Phonetic spelling

As previously discussed, self-efficacy exists around Te-reo and pronouncing the words correctly. Whilst my primary focus is on integrating Te-reo into the design, to aid the emotion development of Māori rangatahi I also want to ensure that non-Māori rangatahi are comfortable using the product.

I have considered creating a Māori Te-reo version and an English version, however I believe that with the initiatives for normalising the Māori language, the English version should be a hybrid of both Māori and English – hence why I have integrated the Māori emotions into this solution. This lead me to think of how I can help non-Māori with learning te-reo, integrating te-reo into the game when the play it. I quickly brainstormed a few ideas and then decided that a toolkit/manual of how phonetical spelling could be beneficial as it would guide the users to pronounce the words in a language familiar to them (eg. How to pronounce Māori words using English language sounds).

To develop this phonetical spelling, I worked with Maria the social worker who is fluent in Te-reo and English. We spent 2 ½ hours breaking down the words and creating the word list as seen on here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18tYXu1ZAF8-617F094IywcKJmPVNxU4R6yETWF0e_Q8/edit#gid=1051052637

 Following on from this I made the words into a very basic paper book to be used at the user testing sessions.

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Emotion Development

Following on from the first round of user testing I made amendments to my first prototype. This involved updating the content (questions and emotions) included, as well as exploring character development of the different emotions. I created the emotion illustrations below based off the illustrations completed by the children during collaboration sessions, as well as the research completed into the popular shows of the children. I ended up creating 6 different characters (two which are very similar and in two different shades of blue – to show a range of sad and very sad emotions).

I intentionally made the illustrations abstract and unique to introduce a fantasy like quality to the game and to remove any associations to other emotion learning content (activity sheets). The emotions created below are still low fidelity and require a lot more work (in terms of the different emotions they depict). I’ve also colour coded them by primary emotion as discussed in my previous post (based off the character design of children’s move ‘Inside Out’. I included the colour in this prototype so I could validate whether the colour coding of the emotions was effective. I’m happy with the outcome of this iteration and believe that the fidelity will be high enough to test with users.

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Emotion card list v1.0 - The list of emotions from the first prototype categorised by user feedback into positive, negative and neutral emotions (colour tags have also been provided).

Emotion card list v1.1 - The list of emotions from the first prototype categorised into the primary tier of emotions (high level emotion families: Anger, Bad, Sad, Happy, Fear, Disgust, Surprise) - (colour tags have also been provided).

Emotion card list v.2.0 - An amended list of emotions balancing the number of identifiable emotions per high level emotion family. (colour tags have been provided). 

I will be A/B testing the content from v1.1 and v2.0 to assess whether the content/list of emotions needs to be amended. I have decided to opt for the primary tiered structure of identifying and colour-coding the emotions as previously discussed, as this method of colour coding is congruent with the depiction of emotions for children in mass media. I believe that it is important to support pre-existing content, rather than reinvent the wheel and subsequently providing contradictory messages to what children are previously accustomed to. 

Please refer to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18tYXu1ZAF8-617F094IywcKJmPVNxU4R6yETWF0e_Q8/edit#gid=1051052637

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Psychology of Colour

I decided to investigate the theory and psychology behind colour to inform my selection of colours for the colour coding. Below are some quick notes that I’ve made from my research - looking at context, cause and effect, systems thinking and the meaning of different colour

Case Study Heinz Green Ketchup:

It was successful because it was contextualised.

Green is congruent with tomatoes, because sometimes tomatoes can be green. As it was congruent with green tomatoes, it made parents feel ok about buying it. 

Secondly Heinz co-branded their Ketchup with the Shrek premiere, a Green character who ate gross things. It was also congruent with Shrek and eating gross meals, which appealed to children. 

Heinz then tried to launch other brightly coloured Ketchup, because they did not understand cause and effect. They believed that the success of the Ketchup was based on kid’s desire to colour their food with bright, funky and wild colours. What they learnt from the product flop was that:

Unlike red and green ketchups, other colours did not have good congruency with tomatoes.

There was no popular movie association to engage kids

Purple and blue are not innately appealing in eating contexts.

Psychology of Colour:

System 1 is an automatic, fast and often unconscious way of thinking. They are typically out of a person’s control. Often born with them, such as instincts. Adopted innate meaning’s form evolutionary paths. 

System 2 is an effortful, slow and controlled way of thinking. System two thinking is slow, learnt behaviour which can overcome system 1 program.

A culture where red means stop (System 2) and supports System 1 of Avoid. The programs support each other. 

Colour means different things in different contexts

Colour meaning:

Red: Primal significance in expressing fear, strength, beauty, status and passion. Red signals competitive, aggressive and dominant contexts, and general context where red signals danger and avoidance. 

Green: Forster creativity and a way to reduce anxiety and mental fatigue. It is associated with meanings of growth, harmony, freshness. Also green is also traditionally associated with greed and jealously. 

Blue: often associated with freedom and intuition. Can also create feelings of negativity and melancholy. 

Purple: represents royalty and luxury. The colour is often associated with  spirituality and fulfilment. 

Beige: dependable and conservative. The colour has connotations of being neutral, relaying and calming. 

Grey: it a neutral colour which has connotations of being emotionless, moody or dull. Grey can cause unsettling feelings as it’s often associated with loss and depression. 

Pink: Universal love, love of oneself. Often associated with harmony and inner peace. Has connotations of being a girl’s colour.

Yellow: primal significance of caution, with conflicting associations of hope and happiness.

I struggled with categorising the emotions and choosing a colour that’s universally associated with them. For example negative emotions include anger and sadness, these emotions both have very different colour’s associated with them. What I’ve done below is break the emotions down into the primary tier of 

Happy, Sad, Disgust, Angry, Fearful, Bad, Surprise

Fear, Disgust, Happy, Sadness & Contempt - Uncomfortable, Surprise, Anger

Based off contextual research into Emotions, I decided to investigate the movie Inside Out. Based off the Heinz experiment I thought it would be best to base the emotion colours off of the movie as it will provide a congruent experience to system 1 and system 2 thinking. I also edited the list of emotions and will A/B test the different set of emotions with a smaller sample size. The reason why I created the second set of emotions was to create a fairer distribution of the different emotions, so that children had an extended vocabulary for each emotion family.  The colour coding is outlined below:

Happiness: Yellow

Sadness & Contempt (Poor name choice, was originally called Bad): Blue

Fear: Purple

Anger: Red

Disgust: Green

The show doesn’t include the Surprise stream of emotions, however I believe that they can be integrated into the other emotion families rather than being introduced. My rationale behind integrating this emotions into other families is based off the Case study of colour theory and Heinz ketchup. As the colours used to depict the other emotions have been introduced and popularised in culture, it makes sense to iterate upon them to reinforce their symbolism and association with the various emotions. 

Confused: Sadness

Startled: Fear

Excited: Yellow

References:

The Meanings of Color. (2018). The Great Courses. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat05020a&AN=aut.b25484953&site=eds-live

Birren, F., & Lufkin, R. (2016). Color psychology and color therapy : a factual study of the influence of color on human life. Pickle Partners Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat05020a&AN=aut.b23861344&site=eds-live

Wierzbicka, A. (2015). The meaning of color words in a cross-linguistic perspective. In A. Elliot, M. Fairchild, & A. Franklin (Eds.), Handbook of Color Psychology(Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 295-316). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107337930.015

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Character Development

When discussing the different illustrations with the children, I asked them what their favourite shows were and two most popular shows with the children were 

Steven Universe

Adventure Time

I went through and watched both shows and saw the whimsical appeal of these fantasy shows. 

Unlike traditional cartoons from my childhood, these shows had abstract characters such as Lemons, Donuts and Diamonds as characters. Some characters only had one eye, others had diamonds embedded on their chest/face. 

The shows existed in alternative universes, for example Adventure time is set in a post-apocalyptic world. 

The television shows challenge societal norms such as same sex marriage. 

The characters are often bright colours such as yellow, pink, blue and red. 

The characters are innovative but do share similar features as humans. 

Below are some GIF’s demonstrating the whimsical world’s created and the unique character’s involved in these cartoons. 

Adventure Time

Above: This is a character called Lemongrab, as you’ve probably guessed Lemongrab is a Lemon. 

Above: Abstract characters that feature in the show include ice-blocks and candy. These characters belong to the ‘Candy Kingdom.’

Steven Universe

Above: Steven Universe has a blended cast of both human and non-human characters. The show exists in a surreal universe where Diamond aliens are invading planet earth. 

Above: A diamond character that only has one eye. 

Above: Steven Universe is the first mainstream children's show to have a same-sex proposal and marriage. 

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Referring back to my ‘Prototype Content Change Tracking’ working document, I gave each emotion an overall ranking - either positive, negative, or neutral. This was calculated by selecting the most common ranking per emotion given by the five adults who categorised the emotions. 

Now that I have revised the content (questions) and the coding of the emotions, I need to develop the characters and investigate colour theory and association. 

Please refer to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R2FPP_c2wgOdV0FYeTkDdo-QMhCzcue3oo0kc4wxKMw/edit#gid=1331245781

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During the user testing sessions with the parents I filled in this Google Sheet with a RAG Scale. 

Red: Questions that they believed to be inappropriate, and that needed to be removed.

Amber: Questions that they were concerned about/needed to be rephrased.

Green: Questions that they approved. 

As you will see in the document I removed questions that participants felt were inappropriate (questions that could potentially instil fears into children, that may not have previously had). I also edited questions to remove specific terminology such as mother/father to ensure that children weren’t asked insensitive questions. 

The next steps from here are to finalise the character redesign and then colour code the characters by their emotion (positive/negative/neutral).

Please refer to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R2FPP_c2wgOdV0FYeTkDdo-QMhCzcue3oo0kc4wxKMw/edit#gid=0

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This is the presentation that I created for class. I focused on the refined insights from my synthesis and created next steps for my second prototype.