POPO
IoT device and app for fostering Healthy Personal Device Use Habits for Families with Tweens
In the fall of 2023, I took on a project aimed at helping families navigate the challenges of personal device use for children in their tweens (8-12 years old).
We created an IoT device and application named POPO to empower families to navigate this post-COVID landscape and foster a balanced approach that promotes self-regulation, responsibility, and open communication during this crucial stage of development.
If you want to know more about POPO, please read specifications below.
Notable contribution
Concept Development
Guided critical discussions during ideation, steering the team towards effective solutions for fostering healthy device use habits in tweens.
User-Centered Research
I spearheaded key generative studies, including user interviews to make sure our design decisions were rooted in real family needs and challenges.
High Fidelity Prototyping
Led the entire visual and interaction design for POPO, creating a cohesive system across the physical toy and companion app.
Team
Jiho Kim(UXD)
2 Physical prototypers
2 Designers
Duration
3 months
Tools
Figma
Spline
Skills
Literature Review
Qualitative Interviews
Rapid Ideation
Rapid Prototyping
Evaluative Research
User Interface Design
the challenge
"If you drip water on a stone long enough, it'll find a way to go through"
said one of our contextual inquiry participants. This quote emphasizes the importance of persistence and adaptability in technology use in families.
The COVID-19 pandemic has left a lasting mark on children's screen habits, with tweens (ages 8-12) experiencing a 17% increase in screen use.
As 80% of parents resort to restrictions, experts warn that outright bans may hinder the development of self-regulation skills.
Why Tweens?
We narrowed down our age scope to children aged 8-12 years since this age range is critical as it typically marks the beginning of…
01
Personal device ownership
02
Increased technology use
03
Shape long-lasting healthy tech habits.
Design Solution
POPO
A family-centric solution that balances between parental involvement and children's independence in fostering suitable tech use habits
My final sketchs for showcasing POPO toy and app.
Research
Triangulating the problems
To truly understand the nuances of this challenge, we embarked on a comprehensive research phase. I took the lead in conducting key generative studies, including:
Contextual inquiry
Observing parents' homes and their interactions with technology would provide valuable insights that may not be verbally expressed.
Dyad Interview
Giving us insight into their parenting relationship, and their differences & similarities of opinion.
SMEs interview
We interviewed Jason Yip who is an associate professor at the UW. He specialises in families and technologies.
We found 3 main insights from research...
After we finished all the interview sessions, we collected and synthesized data.
How might we help parents living in cities foster suitable personal device use habits in tweens (8 to 12 years) at home with a primary focus on media apps?
Ideation
Connecting the Dots
Before we jumped into ideation, I facilitated discussion to define five design principles that will help guide our affinitisation based on our secondary research.
Also, I brainstormed over 30 different ideas on ways to reduce kids' screen time fostering healthy personal device habits, and we came up with over 90 as a team.
Which principles will guide us?
Foster collaboration
Adapt and grow with the child
Provide actionable insights
Intuitive for everyone
Safety & privacy first
Tools for downselection
30 candidates
Each of us came up with 30 ideas
Affinity mapping
Looking at the ideas we came up with 17 different categories to group the ideas
Voting
Each of us voted on 3 ideas that best aligned with our design principles
Six thinking hats
We then took turns with the six thinking hats and reflected on the ideas that each of us selected to agree on the top 3 ideas
Going from 90 ideas to 3
How did we downselect to 1?
To decide our final idea, we did 2x2 matrix based on the desired outcomes.
Collaboration
Encourage the family to collaborate, and manage their personal device usage
Openness & trust
Support openness and trust within the family when it comes to discussing their personal device usage
Self-regulation
Improve children’s ability to self regulate their personal device use
2X2 matrix
We made both the horizontal and vertical axes based on the rationale from our desired outcomes.
Initial design
Building our first design...
Setting up contextual model
I created this contextual model to align the flow of the POPO toy and app.
Mapping information architecture
Before creating user flow and low-fidelity prototype, I made an information architecture to build a foundation for our app.
Low fidelity prototype
I first started out by sketching frames to explore a wide range of ideas, which was refined through feedback from every teammates.
User test
Testing our design
To evaluate our prototype and design, we set up a user test with
3
Individuals
2
Families
For all our key paths, we tested;
Key paths for user testing
We asked participants to behave as they normally would in their everyday lives to ensure accurate data collection from this test. Additionally, we guided them through three specific flows based on our established methods.
Onboarding & Setup
Do families understand what POPO is and how it works?
Daily use
Do users understand how to interact with POPO on a daily basis?
Review time
Do users understand what to do on discussion day?
Overall takeaways from user test
After finishing user tests, we came up with these four takeaways. Our overarching takeaway is how to ensure that parents don't completely take over the decision making process.
01
Add in prompts to enable more collaboration.
02
Encourage sharing the screen during review & setup
03
Provide more guidance as to what is expected of the user
04
Provide more information that shows the intention behind the prompts the app layout.
Final design
Key features walkthrough
What is POPO?
A physical and visual representation of a family’s screen use
POPO is meant to be placed where a family will interact with it most, such as the living room, dining room, or kitchen. Through facial expressions, POPO gives feedback on how the family is doing regarding their collective screen-time limit.
How does POPO work?
Connect POPO and personal devices
All family members are asked to install the app and gather around POPO to start the set up process
Set up family goals and meeting frequencies
Once families have come to an agreement, they can set how often they’d like to discuss
Daily Interaction
POPO's expression reflects total family screen time.
The app shows the total family usage rather than individual usage.
Discussion time
Families convene around POPO to view individual screen usage through the app, which offers discussion prompts to encourage positive conversations about digital habits.
Design System
REflection
Takeaways
Lesson learned
Developing POPO as both a physical device and an app showed me the value of creating holistic solutions that address problems from multiple angles, catering to different interaction preferences and contexts of use.
This project deepened my understanding of how technology can be leveraged to influence behavior positively, especially in sensitive areas like family dynamics and child development.
If we have more time…
We want to test the high fidelity prototype with actual families.
We want to make the POPO more interesting and fun to use for families by adding more POPO interactions
We want to think more on long Term use cases for POPO. Designing how POPO will age, how can it adapt as tweens become teens?
