Adults are from earth; Children are from the moon. Part - 3

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{ Designing for Children.  A Process - Oriented Approach } 


Read the Part -1 and Part - 2 


CONSTRAINTS, SO WE DO NOT CONSTRAINT THE CHILD


• Movement
A good design needs to offer children an invitation to move within safe and tolerable limits, and every child will move to a different drummer. This is very important while designing spaces for children. If too restricted, children become frustrated and fidgety, or they try to gain access to prohibited components of the environment.


• Comfort
A feeling of comfort is important to children's use and exploration. There needs to be moderate and varied levels of stimulation for all the senses. Behavior is optimized at a comfort zone of stimulation, neither too little nor too much. An overload of sensory stimulation and noise will exacerbate children's feelings of discomfort and result in undesired behaviors.

• Competence
Children need to feel successful in negotiating. Yet the world at large forces them to constantly confront intimidating and frustrating experiences. Successful children's toys and environments are designed to make children competent inhabitants and users.

• Control
Children need the ability to exercise control over the environment and acquire increased levels of autonomy. Children must have experiences that allow them to experiment and make decisions.
Through deliberate design, one can keep children from inappropriate usage ways by eliminating affordances for undesired behavior. It is required that children be challenged and not become bored.

• Variety
The theory of multiple intelligences challenges the traditional notion that intelligence is a single, fixed commodity. Rather, it says we all possess eight distinct and somewhat autonomous intelligences to differing degrees — linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinaesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal and naturalist. We tend to be most interested in activities that match our stronger intelligences. There are also distinct differences between the interests of girls and boys. Therefore, the variety of activities must appeal to the broadest range of multiple intelligences and to both genders.

• Choice of Materials
Durability and maintenance are important considerations in designing for anyone. But, children will give things more wear and tear than adults do and will definitely get things dirtier faster. Materials need to be durable and easy to clean and maintain. Using materials and finishes that can be sanitized is important, especially when it has to do with infants and toddlers.

• Child Development:
As a designer for children one has to have a thorough understanding of a child’s growth pattern, both physical and psychological. This helps in decision making when it comes to choosing of the concept and age appropriation and material selection etc., For example, it is important for a designer to know that toddler between the ages of 2 and 3 might have ‘oral fixation’ and hence it is inappropriate to use anything that might be toxic in nature. At the same time, a child who is 5 years old might have a toddler sibling who would wish to play with the 5 year old’s toys.

• Safety
The concepts such as anthropometrics and ergonomics, (sometimes referred to as human factors engineering) which means designing things to match children's physical sizes and abilities also play a very vital role in a responsible design. This includes characteristics such as height, grip, reach, field of vision, etc., so that tasks can be performed with a minimum of stress and maximum of efficiency and safety. It doesn't do any good to design equipment that doesn't fit a child's anthropometrics and skills and isn't ergonomically correct. Either he will not be able to use the equipment or he will feel incompetent trying to, and neither outcome will make him desire to return. And poorly designed equipment, furniture and environments that don't match children's anthropometrics can actually be dangerous.


TESTING

Finally, one of the best ways to help build a successful experience for children is through watching children navigate and interact with your product. Not all companies will have the budget for an extensive and elaborate testing, but almost all will have the ability to do at least a minimal amount of testing — even if it’s with just one child. This will allow us to see the product through a child’s eyes and make any necessary modifications, the same as would be done in any usability tests.


CONCLUSION

Designing for children is no simple task, since most adult designers have a completely different perception of the product than the users they are designing for. If you put children in an environment not properly designed for them, Children are going to use the environment in ways that their biology tells them to, so it's the responsibility of adults to design children's environments carefully to produce the desired behaviours. Positive outcomes for children's behaviour in a leisure or education setting will be produced only when it has been design with a thorough knowledge of child development, play, anthropometrics, ergonomics, environmental factors, way finding, environmental psychology and universal design.

Adults are from earth; Children are from the moon. Part - 2

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{ Designing for Children.  A Process - Oriented Approach } 


Read the Part - 1



RESEARCH

            When it comes to design I personally believe one has to do the ethnography oneself, as much as possible. The points that you notice when you are physically present in front of the sample are so important. There are some things that one can jot down on paper, some expressions could be caught on camera but it takes a human presence to note the ten million things that are happening around the target at the same fraction of a second.
When one personally interacts with the target and designs for him/ her it is easier to transcend into their shoes than to view it from couple of another set of eyes! Information, how much ever carefully documented, lapses when channeled more than once.


CHOOSING THE TARGET

            While it may be easier to group adults into 25 to 60 years of age or even larger sets; with children, the sets must be much smaller and has a lot or exceptions in each category.

Hence, one has to choose and design by cognitive ability. Mental schemas, image perspective, attention spans, perceptions are all important things to be considered before designing. While one may be designing for the Preoperational period of a child, it is important to keep in mind that some of the mental skills from the earlier stages may not have developed.

Not just age, but the geographic location from which the target is chosen, their medium of instruction, education boards, peers at school, parent’s education, race, if the child is multi lingual or mono lingual etc., plays a very vital role in sampling the target.

Once our target sample of audience is identified, we must spent time interacting with the kids to better understand their background, abilities in terms of education, cognition and knowledge. This paves a way to an ice breaking session with them so that they get more comfortable around us. We should also interact with their caregivers and other players in their ecosystem who have knowledge based on their day-to-day interactions. Following this, a participatory design session with the children is to be conducted and images on our topic of choice could be asked to be drawn, painted or even made by the children. We can then use design language that the kids provide us for our final design direction.

The various problems that arise for designers around this are the language constraints (not all children are fluent in English) and the pre monitions the children have when we ask them to draw or make something. Like, say a child is trained to draw a certain set of things at school and when we ask him / her to draw her favourite “toy” for example he/ she might draw what they have been trained by their drawing teacher.

One solution that we tried at a school was “dream conceptualization”. We asked the children to close their eyes and dream of playing with “the most beautiful toy in the world” and asked them to draw the same. This helped a bit but there are always hindrances when it comes to the drawing skills of the children.


Key Points to remember while Designing for Children,

BRIGHT, VIVID COLORS

            Bright colours will easily capture and hold a child’s attention for long periods of time. Although colour choice is a primary factor in designing anything, this is especially true when designing for children since colors make a big impression on children’s young minds. Colour choices and combinations that would likely be rejected or laughed at when designing a typical product, may be welcomed by children.
So, when designing products aimed at kids, use bright, vivid colours that will visually stimulate in an unforgettable way


A HAPPY MOOD

            Kids will remember and return to a toy if their experience is a happy one. Elements can be incorporated into the design to ensure that a cheerful, positive mood is presented to the children.


STORY TELLING

            Images are powerful communication mediums with children. Images don’t just communicate to them a set of instructions but children tend to perceive them as a story. For this reason, one could employ images as part of an effective story telling methodology. Here, children could themselves become the story tellers when adults are not around. They interpret the images in their own ways and create amazing stories to themselves and some of them might even narrate it to their parents.



HAIL MINIMALISM:

            One must be minimalistic in ones’ design: This applies to not just children but anyone per say. But, the simplest things can be very confusing to the child. For example, a line around the space to draw an image can constrict a child to draw within the borders and give him a feeling that he is “not supposed” to use the white space around. Children don’t want to do intense reading or research; they want to play and be entertained. Children might need “illustrative” straight forward designs at certain point and the same time some of the larger than life abstractions do the trick.


INCORPORATE ELEMENTS FROM NATURE

            Children are stimulated by recognizable elements that they can relate to. Because children’s experiences in life are limited, some of the things they are most familiar with are found in nature. Natural elements such as trees, water, snow, and animals could be used. In many cases, these elements are overemphasized through size or simplicity of design.


Read the Part - 3

Adults are from earth; Children are from the moon. Part -1

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  { Designing for Children.  A Process - Oriented Approach } 


Every child born in this world is a gift of god. There is a saying in Tamil, "kuzhandiyum deivamum gunathal ondru" that means children have an attitude similar to god. They have their own imaginary world bereft of hatred, bias and dogmas.

            Hence, designing for children is not something very easy as you cannot thrust upon them your ideologies. They're pretty black and white about what they like and don't like. It is better to leave it to their choice and solicit their opinions on what toys they would prefer to play with. An important aspect for children's use of objects is that they are more interested in the process of using than achieving an end result like adults do.


THE LEARNERS

            A newborn baby enters the world with enormous inherent capabilities! Within four years she will have developed into a person who will run, jump, ask questions all day long, play princesses or superman and twist you round her little finger!
A baby comes into the world with a powerful urge to learn, to explore, to relate, to participate in and contribute to the buzz of activity going on around her. It is incredibly interesting to see how easy and natural it is for them to interact with technology, and at the same time, remember the many challenges we had to face when we started using computers or technology in general. Young children may have little knowledge or experience, but they have truly amazing talents as learners. Their abilities to self-improve are endless!


“One thing about designing for children - You can convince an adult about your design and make them buy it. But a child, if he doesn't like the toy he'll throw it right away!!”

          -Kanaka Ananth, Toy designer, Faculty at D J Academy of design.
           
            They're pretty black and white about what they like and don't like. One of the ways to increase the shelf life of a toy in the kid’s wardrobe is by making the toy as versatile as possible. A toy that can transform into another toy and involves a certain kind of complexity tends to have a longer time of attention than the toys that do the same monotonous actions or repeat the same lines over and over again.
This is one reason why board games like monopoly, life, snake &ladder etc., are still in great popularity over the dancing doll. Toys like train where the child gets to design its track, add multiple landmarks and construct a whole city, grow with the child. The toy matches itself with the mental maturity of the child’s brain and hence never lets the child get bored of it. The children who played with such toys remember it even when they are adults.


BOREDOM

            Children become bored when there's a mismatch between what they have the ability to do and what they are expected or want to do. They enjoy themselves when their skills match the task at hand. If they're challenged beyond their capability, they become anxious and often claim boredom as a defence. If not challenged enough, they're bored. In either case, a bored child will find ways to be challenged by climbing, running or other behaviours that match their abilities.
Children prefer and are most drawn to play with high degrees of challenge, diversity, novelty and complexity. The type, quality and diversity of children's play equipment directly affect the type, quality and diversity of their play. Since children's developmental tasks and skill levels change constantly as they age, the point where boredom sets in is a moving target.

Children's physical (fine and gross motor), intellectual and social skills are constantly advancing. This means that children's environments must offer what is known as “graduated challenges”. This not only helps when a child moves on from a certain competency level but also facilitates adaptation to the same age children with different levels of skills.
The ability children possess to interact with, explore, control and to transform their toys is very important to them. Toys that include loose parts that children can manipulate, move and construct with are immensely more engaging than static equipment.
There's the issue of children's attention spans, which can be much shorter than that of adults. So something that at first interests a child can 10 minutes later become boring. To overcome this challenge, the products must offer a wide variety of options to explore. Too little a variety limits children's play options and leads to increased levels of boredom and aggression.



“Just because you were a child once doesn't give you the eligibility to design for them.”

            -Anita Sen, Children's book illustrator, Graphic Designer at Foley Designs.

            Some people might just have a knack with children and their ways. But to design for them, involves a great deal more than having a knack of being friendly with them. To be able to design for children, one should be able to get into their shoes and look at things from their point of view and at the same time be able to have their thoughts up high to match the needs of their growth pattern at that certain milestone of the child’s life.



“Children's illustration is a different field itself because of the responsibility involved. You just might be designing someone's first ever memory”

            -Shiva Nallaperumal, Student - Graphic design, D J Academy of design.

            Not just children’s illustration but the whole area of children’s design for the matter plays a very sensitive role in design industry. I personally think that children’s design should be included in every design school’s design program alongside Inclusive design and sustainability. It is nothing but another variant of “responsible design”.

 Read the Part - 2  and Part - 3.


The Volition

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How did you feel when you held that weapon of destruction in your hand,
looked all around and,
What did you think?
Did you just even for a moment out of curiosity think
Of using its vile superpower against someone or the world...
Did that thought even cross your mind that power gives you immense freedom?
The power in your hands to create or destroy
To nail it down or to compromise,
To stay there and witness or to bailout and shiver!

Ashleel

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Solicits the sagacious heart! 

Cold breeze, colder as tempers gush
Warmth surging in, in a momentary flush
Like an abyss that flows from nowhere,
Right down to, you know where!
Icy splinters searing on into the warmer dusk
At the wee hours, solitude at its pinnacle,
Reminiscences trickle down the spine, the musk.
And in the apparent dryness, a tingle
Clammier deep within, incisive on consort,
Yet, unwary of the status quo, to just mingle,
Solicits the sagacious heart! 

A bug, slithering and twirling in sun,
Squirming in its bright light
There are only so many ways I can…*
And thoughts only get shoddier by the night
Scuffling deep within, whims over reality,
Uncouth or the gallant, neither black nor with the white
Stumbling at a terminal, at its close proximity.
As the congenial and the controversial get in a tangle,
My halo held up by the horns tight, upright
Yet, unwary of the status quo, to just mingle,
Solicits the sagacious heart!



* google ;)

Theory of innocence

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­When I was a little girl I had my own theories about the world as I knew it. One thing I was firm about, we lived on the inside of the earth as geography called it, the mantle. Someone had already told me that the earth was round so strike out the option of it being a planar surface. So, the only other conclusion was that the earth was made of concentric spheres. There was a core, the land we lived on and the blue sky with empty space between the land and the space, the universe where everything flew.
The sky was of two hemispheres – one with holes- the stars and the other with a huge round lamp that changed its colour from orange – yellow to white, widely known as the Sun. The sky rotated about an axis as my geography teacher told me but the land stayed still. If the land rotated, I’d have known right! It did move once a while and we named it earthquake! Outside the world was bright white light – whose source I didn’t really give much of a thought about.
The night side of the sky had holes of multiple sizes one big hole that had some dirt on it; I guess God hadn’t had time to clean the glass. And numerous other small holes that kept twinkling.
I also believed that the airplanes could fly through the little holes at night and go to the other countries or may be visit the God but not the birds ‘cause they were pretty huge for the size of the holes... Aliens with green skin and huge poppy eyes lived there in those other countries outside! I’ve spend so many hours wondering how small would those people in the airplanes be, were they smaller than the people on TV or the ones that hid inside my radio? I thought maybe, just maybe the sky was made of glass, tinted blue –dark and light.
Sometimes the sphere leaked or cracked causing thunderstorms. My grandmother tried convincing me that it was the Gods taking a shower or bursting firecrackers. I used to laugh at how naïve she sounded; I mean come on, how stupid is that!
The other theory was that the stars were little lights that hung from the sky and the twinkling was because there was a power shortage!
This one time I was lying down on the terrace at my grandparents and couldn’t figure out what that falling star was. They were just, some birds bumping into one of the strings making one of the stars to sway and fall. Ah, the poor thing!
The clouds, they were the smoke that gets out of the little airplanes that fly. It made me go like, “Oh golly, look at the size of those things!” looking at them and making recognizable shapes of people, things and animals!
The day I experienced my first hailstorm, I was thinking, may be grandma was right; God's probably having a party up there and ice cubes are falling ;)
I’ve always had a thing for the skies and stars and since the beginning of time as I’ve known it, I've spent hours lying down on the cold floor of my terrace wondering if someone from the other worlds (continents) outside the earth was lying down on the terrace n wondering about the same thing as me.
Before I could finalize on the theory education somehow managed to ruin me and I was forced to believe that we lived on the surface and somehow didn’t fall off it because of some strange sticky thing called gravity.

Million thoughts in a moment!

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The human brain is so fast it can process information seen by the eyes, bring some wanted and unwanted nostalgic scenarios, memories back in and project the vivid picture in your head. Science may call it cognition. Genuinely, I don’t actually care what science has to say, cause science can’t reason out the million memories that are played in a loop in my head within a moment’s time.

Dave and Kia walked towards the smoking zone downstairs. He sat down on the stone hedge, took a deep drag of his cigarette. Noticing, Kia was still standing, he inched towards the edge, making space for her to sit down next to him. Not even a moment passed since, the movement made his shirt to slip a bit off his neck, revealing his thin frame at the shoulder blade and his collar bone.  Flash! Collar bone…

Collar bone, ah! She’s in a bus to the city, Greg  stood right there, opposing her, the bus was crowded. He exhibited a warm smile as he spoke of some experiences to the other guy who had joined them. His  Stories; random enough to make her eyes linger over his smile, his lips. His voice in the background, his smile so bright, she thought, 'he is obviously glad that I am there with him this moment'. She pondered over his smile… Flash!

She was with a friend Sam, at this juice shop at a pavement in Bangalore, waiting for their sandwiched to arrive. A cute, short, smart looking guy with thick black retro glasses (must be in his 20s, She thought to herself) walks into the pavement and to the juice shop, inquires about a shake mentioned in the menu-card  Sharjah Shake… Flash!

Class 11, Mrs. Srimathi, the commerce teacher was standing in the middle of the aisle, talking about the advertisements of TV these days, the target they choose and how witty they are. Suddenly, she drifts off into what she had for dinner with her husband the previous night, impervious to the irritated reaction the class made, she went on and on about this new shake that hotel Aaryas, just in close proximity to the school’s back gate has started offering, she was insisting they all tried it… and it was called, sharjah shake…
“Sharjah shake has chikku and banana with milk”, said the juice wala in his unadulterated heavy mallu accent. The cute guy, obviously disgusted with the abnormal combination walked away. She let out a scornful sigh and resumed her trivial conversation with Sam. In about a couple of minutes, the cute guy walks in again, enticing her all over again, ordered a cold coffee. He stood there sipping on it unaware of a girl stealing glances at him. Her friend obviously disturbed by the fact that her attention was diverted to a stranger sipping onto coffee in a fresh fruit stall, casually asked her, “So, you notice that guy there?”. The sudden impugnation startled her and a shocked “uh?” escaped Kia’s lips, involuntarily. Sam smiled, and repeated, “you notice the guy there?”. Sam and Kia were close enough for her to reveal all her silly little fantasies, so she blurted out, “yeah! He’s kinda cute!”. What she didn't expect was that Sam would get up and walk to the cute guy. Before she realized the stupidity of her blunt statement, his hands were around the cute guy’s shoulder and they had an inaudible animated conversation. To add to her terror, they were looking at her as they spoke. Sam and the cute guy walk up to her, and the cute guy puts his hand out in a gesture of a handshake and says, “Hi! I’m Greg, Sam’s schoolmate from eighth standard”.  He sat down with them, filling up the 8 years in exile with stories and gossips. Kia had a bus to catch that night and she had plans for dinner with Sam at his place. She suggested they push off and Sam gestured a bye to Greg.  Kia looked at Greg, it was indeed nice to meet him and she had to say that. Before she could work up the courage to do so, he extended his hand again and said, “nice meeting you” and gave a broad smile at her. It all happened so quick that she couldn't process her thoughts, words slipped out of her mouth and they sounded something like, “Would you like to join us?” He said sure and threw another one of his strong astras at her, His smile…

His smile, she knew he was glad to see her in Mumbai and that he did know how glad she was too. He adjusted his hand over the rods railed to the roof of the bus and as he did, his shirt slid away a little, exposing his collar bone. Her eyes moved down from his lips to the collar bone, lingered over there a while too long and by the time she realized, his eyes were on her.  She looked up unaware of the audience in the crowded bus and they spoke, not a word uttered but message neatly conveyed through the eyes. Through the night, she carefully dropped each of her cards one after the other and finally to a, “Yes, I’m not too far from falling for you…” he smiled, because he read them all in perfect coherence.  Now that they were clear, she went on with concentrating on more pushing things of the moment, his fingers intertwined with hers under the table.

Dave, took another deep drag and asked her,” So what are you working on right now?”  She drifted back to normalcy and as if nothing happened, started discussing routines and plans for the weekend!


Sir, you've walked in at the wrong time; The Bar is closed!

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None's written a poem for him he said... well, I'm glad I got to be your first! ;)
This isn't something one would get welled up reading, But this one's for and of you, nonetheless!

The door cracks open,
Dust and splinters, carpeting the floor.
The glass panels all in a downpour,
The shattered crystals shining in a gazillion
I look up through tears, the bottom of soda bottle and mumble,
Sir, you've walked in at the wrong time,
The Bar is closed!

Warm smile, inconspicuous looks
Smart and witty, just the way he should
Must be a drug dealer in disguise, I thought,
Charmer, of some sort
I take a stance, whoever he might be -
Sir, you've walked in at the wrong time,
The Bar is closed!

He takes a step further, Cool, Poised and Calm.
Sits down by the wrecks, and starts to read my palm.
His grip tight, his smile so warm, perfect.
If some looks could kill, this would resurrect!
His words were like magic, I stutter,
Sir… Sir, you've walked in at the wrong time,
The Bar is closed!

“Devastation tiling itself stout, in gloom,
Splinters of dreams piercing onto the new, making it trivial,
And right now, a support to stand by, is all I consider crucial -
To help repair the damage, bring life back to normal, at least, almost”

You’re not the support sir, you’re a mere drug.
The custom mix sort, you’d still get me weary.
You’re a drug that eases the pain, but doesn't cure any,
Killing me some day, fraternizing in my blood.
And about that someday, I’d skip thinking as much as I could.
Still, Sir, you've walked in at the wrong time,
The Bar is closed, for renovation!

I smile, looking hopeful Nonetheless,
“Now if you might close the door behind
Sir, You could work your magic in here. Us, combined!”