examination of a personalized user experience || TINYBOP’S ME: A KID’S DIARY
introduction
For Professional Applications of EdTech, I was asked to describe an app/digital experience that I feel exhibits an exemplary personalized experience for a learner. Here’s a walk-through of my experience.
In ME: A Kid’s Diary by Tinybop, kids as young as four create their own personal narratives in the form of a multimedia diary. Starting by creating an avatar, users then go on to answer prompts about themselves. The affordances are simple: prompts appear in floating bubbles that users tap on. There are mostly open-ended questions that are answered using structured prompts to draw, write, record, take pictures, etc. In doing this kids get to play with their personas and identities while developing social emotional skills like self-expression and self-awareness. The design team has figured out how to reach users though the visual design, which grabs your attention with whimsical illustrations that engage both kids and their grown ups. The content and visuals are harmonious and support an ongoing weaving together of a kid’s life story.
As they get more involved
users start fleshing out their identities and are prompted to shift perspectives and explore themselves within bigger contexts. Kids can create additional avatars for their family members & pets.
Assuming the persona
of whoever’s avatar they’re working with, kids can answer prompts from another person's perspective. This is a great way in which personalization can be a great tool for developing empathy. Kids can also explore aspects of their identity in ways that grown-ups might not consider.
This is an identity map
It’s visual organization lends itself to serve as an effective primer for introducing concepts of systems thinking, since kids can begin to see themselves as whole made up of complementary parts viewed from within a broader range of contexts. The potential for such fully personalized and diverse applications are what make this app such an exceptional learning tool. By taking complex concepts and breaking them down into chunks, this app leverages personalization as a teaching tool in order to promote meaningful learning in other unrelated areas. As a result, kids develop a host of useful tools.
Teachers can use this app for in-depth
writing, research or STEAM projects either done alone or in groups. There are so many ways ME can be adapted for process-oriented work. It’s a tool that helps build communication and critical thinking skills. There seem to be hundreds of prompts and user experience feels open ended. My eight year old has been using this app pretty regularly for a few years now. When he looks around inside he easily can see how he’s grown and changed over the years. It only really starts to get good after users have spent some time working with it. This comes across visually and conceptually from the first point of contact. I’d be curious to see if Tinybop’s metrics back up this kind of user retention or not.
By encouraging kids to create personal
narratives through visual storytelling, they’re also developing their sense of agency. This is critical for learning and development. Kids need to feel they have the capacity to act independently and make their own choices and be heard, rather than have their identity assigned to them by their teachers, parents or outside structures. Here they are free to explore concepts like gender, race, ethnicity, ability, as well as their personal tastes and family customs.
There are many apps
and digital diaries on the market for children, and many of them are cute. ME is unique in that it’s both beautifully designed and also offers users a meaningful personal experience—a combination that’s harder to find. Above is an excerpt from my son’s diary of us reading bedtime stories together.
Users MAY design Avatars
for important cultural and historical figures, and answer prompts from their perspectives. This can be a springboard to foster offline conversations of all kinds. My children and I made these together as we watched the inauguration, for example.
SKILLSET
Knowledge of business,
market + technology
Communication + Articulation
Critical Thinking
Writing
User focus
Research-backed learning design
UX Design
Conceptual + Systems Thinking
Design Thinking
Mobile + Web familiarity
Work standards