Mobile Operating System for Children
This is a Design Sprint project to design a mobile friendly Operating system for children, such that it is easy to use, appealing and also secure for the children. To design this we as students were required to conduct a detailed research about children and their use of smartphones, what are the things their parents face on a daily basis due to their child's use of smartphones to understand their problem as a parent and come up with a solution. A solution which made it easy to use and appealing for the child and gave the parent a surety of their child's safety.
In order to start with the Survey I felt it was necessary to do a general research first to get an idea of what kinds of questions can I ask parents to understand their problem. So I first read and researched about the use of smartphones amongst children and their pros and cons. I then short listed the questions I should be asking to a parent as follows and within the brackets are the reason why I asked them that question:
1. Are you a parent?
2. How old is your child? (To understand the parent's problem with respect to the age of the child)
3. How much time does your child spend on smartphones? (based on which my operating system gives them an option to set a time limit for their child)
4. Out of the above how much time is solely for academic purpose? (to understand how much time they spend on weekends and weekdays and allow a schedule accordingly)
5. What are the things/apps you don't want your child to have access to? (to understand if the parents want to restrict their child from using applications like social media, YouTube, etc.)
6. Do you want your child to have access to social media other than for academic purposes? (To understand if it was just unwanted content or also social media they don't want their children to have access to )
7. How much time do you want to limit your child's usage of gadgets to? (to understand the options I as a designer can give them in setting the time limit)
8. What do you fear or what are the challenges you face while your child uses smartphones? (to understand their problem with security)
10. Has your child's behavior, sleep schedule or academic score been effected due to smartphones? ( to understand the impact of smartphones on children and thereby keep the limited screen time feature)
11. Does your child play games online besides playing them in applications? (To know if they were aware about interaction with strangers and hence keeping an inbuilt tracker system in my operating system)
I then Interviewed my neighbors and cousins who have children aged between 4 to 12 years old I and received the following information:
The screen time of their child's usage of a smart phone and their major fear is access to unwanted content. (Cheril-Mother of a 12 year old)
Another problem faced by parents were access of YouTube to children. Most children spend a lot of time on YouTube (Kusum-Mother of a 7 year old)
Change of behavior in children depending on their parent giving them the access to phone. (Varshika-Mother of a 4 year old)
Small children having difficulty in navigation with the general Mobile Operating System and not familiar with using it.(Archana- mother of a 5 year old)
Children spending too much time making videos and unnecessary things trending on social media.(Teena- mother of a 12 year old)
General Research
More and more studies show that owning a smart phone is highly detrimental to young people.
The creators of smart phones successfully designed them to be addictive. A survey by Common Sense Media shows that the average teen spends 7 hours and 22 minutes per day looking at the screen, and this time does not include doing homework! Tweens spend about 4 hours and 44 minutes in front of the screen. In fact, 50% of teens feel addicted to their phones and 78% check their phones hourly.
Smart phones result in lower academic grades because they distract kids from their studies and reduce cognitive capacity.
Smart phones alter the brain. Kids who spent more than 7 hours a day in front of a screen were found to have premature thinning of the cortex, putting them at risk of deteriorating memory function, perception skills and cognitive abilities.
Smart phones adversely affect the quantity and quality of sleep. Children stay up late on their phones, and they wake up in the middle of the night to check for messages. Sleep deprivation leads to moodiness, depression, reduced focus, and a weakened immunity.
Smart phones lead to the deterioration of real person-to-person relationships. Teens tend to become absorbed in their virtual relationships and to neglect their real ones, including their relationships with family members.
Multiple studies have shown that social media usage increases the risk of anxiety and depression. Suicide rates among teenage girls between 10 and 14 have triples, thanks to the misery caused by social media.
About one out of every four children have suffered from cyber bullying, but only one out of ten will tell their parents.
With a smart phone, kids can view pornography anytime and anywhere. Young people are lured to dangerous sites through deceptive and targeted ads. Let’s remember that porn sticks in the brain… these images are difficult to erase and they reduce the possibility of marital happiness.
Conclusion of my Research
To solve the problems I need to create an Operating system that can do the following:
-Controls Screen Time
-Tracks the child's where abouts
-Does not let the child access unwanted content/sites/information.
-That allows to set a child's schedule and allows the access of applications to the child based on their schedule.
-To also restrict access to YouTube and other apps as per the parents will.
The above is from Parent perspective. Further for the child I need to design the operating system as follows:
-Easy to use and navigate (restrict screen content to only those apps and features that should be used by a child)
-Appealing to the children.
Ideation Process
On day two we were supposed to start with the Ideation process, make mind maps, mood boards and brainstorm with parents to come up with ideas for our solution.
Conclusion from the Ideation Process:
-To solve the problem of screen time in the settings my operating system should have an option for parents to set a time limit based on the child's schedule which will accordingly allow the child to use the smartphone for only those many hours as set by the parent when the phone is set in kids mode.
-To solve the problem of cyber bullying and interaction with strangers allow the parents to set a list of contacts with whom their child can interact through calls, SMS, WhatsApp etc.
-To solve the problem of sending inappropriate pictures by mistake to people specially is more risky with the front camera, have front camera settings such that it focuses on the face and blurs the background and surroundings, and also ask for a confirmation before the picture is clicked.
-In order to solve the problem of access to unwanted content and apps allow the parent to customize within the kids mode option in the settings the applications that they think is appropriate and reasonable for the child to use.
-To solve the problem of access to unwanted content on various platforms, when the phone is on kids mode applications like YouTube etc., automatically change to a kids mode too
-An inbuilt tracker that gives the history of all the activities done by the child when the phone is on kids mode
-A password system that only allows the parent to switch from the kids mode to a normal mode.
-To keep the various means for learning open for the child allow them access to google things and research, but also the tracking feature helps the parent keep a track of the child's activity.
According to me the above points mostly solve the security problem.
With respect to aesthetic appeal and easy to use I will try to keep it simple from a child's perspective, with proper directions and use colors and designs appealing to a child some of which will be influence by my mood board. As of now I intend to make my operating system colorful with clear guidelines and bigger buttons. Also giving an option to keep the original theme considering the choice of growing up children.
Most parents agreed with the above points. But some wanted to also give their children some privacy, but I feel like I shall still make the customized apps and contacts feature available because in that case if the parent want their child to have privacy they can ask their children to customize it (also considering the fact that children whose parents think need privacy are above 10-12 years old), but in case of small children it might become necessary for the parent to customize their use of apps and contacts to avoid various problems like addiction, access to unwanted content and cyber bullying.
Prototyping
On the third day we were supposed to come up with sketches, wireframes and final designs.
Above is an animation video of how a parent could switch to the child mode. I have named my Mobile Operating system as 'Mini Operating System' (Mini not only talking about the operating system being mini but also indicating it is for the child)
The icons used are simple lines and geometry contained in a round edged container. I wanted to keep it simple.
To just give an idea of the operating system I designed a few screens such as the home screen and lock screen in different themes, the tracker screen when the parent checks and the applications screen
Two versions of Icons based on the theme chosen by the child, colored and a white version, but both created with basic geometry and lines.
How the tracker screen appears to the parent and on further clicking on the app icons gives the parent a detailed information of their child's activity.
Above are examples of the themes available for the child depending on their choice and age they can choose it. For example a 5 year old would want the interactive star themed operating system which makes it easier for them to use, whereas a 12 year old would want a Disney based or the same theme as their parents are using.
Explanation of my Design
In my design the Primary color is white and secondary colors being: #f24965, #b4d9d9, #F2d022 and #B7D93D
I thought giving various theme options for children, bigger Icons and having a friendly tone to guide them will make it easy for their use and appealing to them.
As a child I would definitely get attracted to two things, anything colorful and anything glowy which is why I designed the operating system such that depending on the theme chosen by the child it would either be glowy or colorful.(Appealing factor)
The typography used by me is Myriad Variable concept which is a sans serif, and also a little thick which makes it easier for the child to read.
The shapes used in my operating system are rounded rectangles because I personally feel they look very neat.
And the animation video gives a brief Idea of how the Secure problem is solved by allowing the parent to customize the contact access, application access, setting a screen time limit for the child as per their schedule and an inbuilt tracking system to track their activities. My idea was influenced by the Instagram story setting feature.
The layout used in my operating system is a mixture of an android and apple. I tried to mix all the attractive features. Eg: apple home screen slides up for wifi options etc, whereas the horizontal brightness is something an android phone has.
I think my solution works because it solves all the problems of security, appeal and ease of use.
On the fourth day, we were supposed to send our designs to the parents we interviewed to get a review about the operating system we designed. So i got feedback as follows:
I also called a few of them to get their review and most of their response was that they really like the whole Idea and at the same time would like to give their children a little privacy, which can be solved by them allowing their children to customize the access to various apps and contacts.
They also liked the idea of having different themes based on the age of the child where some are interactive and some are not.
More or less I think my solution solves the problem of difficulty in navigation, etc., makes smartphones secured for children and is appealing because of it's simplicity.
Reflective Analysis
It was a challenging process to complete this project in 4 days but also felt like something I would have to experience in the real world. Moreover, a day before the submission of the Prototype my Photoshop hung and wasn't opening so I lost quite some time and still wasn't able to fix it, but was constantly reminded of the fact that a good designer is never dependent on a software, so I tried whatever I could. This project was also like a brush through all the basic design principles we learnt and it was a unique experience.
