Plaiy Case study
End to end app using AI technology to generate activity ideas for kids
UX Design | UI Design | Research | Information Architecture | Interaction Design | Wireframes
| UX Writing | Responsive Design | Branding | Prototyping | Usability Testing | Logo design
Role
End to end UX/UI designer
Brief
Create an end to end app
Timeline
5 weeks
Approx. 90 hours
Tools
Figma
Miro
Google docs
Excel
What is Plaiy?
Plaiy is an app that uses AI technology to generate activity ideas for children to help parents/caretakers. The AI generates ideas based on factors the user inputs such as age, supplies, time, and environment.
Users also have the option to create children's profiles and generate ideas by simply selecting the kids pre filtered profiles and can also create material inventory lists so they don’t need to input new items each time.
Target audience
Adults/teens aiming to keep children busy for short or long periods of time.
Why Plaiy? (on a personal note)
I'm the second oldest among 11 siblings, and I often find myself searching for quick and creative ways to keep them entertained during babysitting duties. Through conversations with friends, teachers, and other adults, I've come to understand that the struggle to generate on-the-spot ideas for keeping kids engaged is a universal challenge, regardless of the setting or the number of children involved.
A sneak peak into how it works
Before
Process
Result
My assumption
Many adults struggle to keep their kids busy. This can be due to a lack of time or resources to discover suitable activities for their current circumstance. With the rise of AI, there can be an opening to potentially creating a tool that would be helpful for parents for this issue.
What I want to learn
Can an app that generates ideas for entertaining kids be a practical tool for parents and caregivers, and offer convenience, creativity, and stress relief all while facilitating engaging and educational experiences for children?
Does this problem really exist?
Finding opportunity
Taking a futuristic approach to technology, we can identify two significant factors shaping the future:
Children
Artificial intelligence.
Identifying areas for improvement in these areas can lead to substantial growth at a larger scale.
The decrease of engaging activities for kids
The rise of AI
Market research
Involvement
About 40% of the population become parents.
Teachers amount of 2.5% of the population
In addition to all caretakers and babysitters.
Most people deal with kids at some point in their lives.
Ideas
Adults may feel stressed, tired, and under pressure, leaving them with little energy for brainstorming ideas. Searching for ideas online can be helpful but also time-consuming, leading them to default to familiar activities for a quick solution.
AI
AI is on the rise and people use it for generating ideas all the time. Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP techniques can be used to understand the user's input. Machine Learning Algorithms: Machine learning algorithms are the core of the recommendation engine.
Demand
Life Moments A Day, Scary Mommy, Parenting.com, and Rookie Moms, are just a few on the hundreds of resources out there for parents. While not all are dedicated to activity ideas, many circle back to the idea of keeping your kids busy and happy.
What will people say if we spoke to them firsthand?
5 interviewees
All experienced with watching children
Here are some common answers interviewee’s shared
“I have no energy to come up with new activity ideas”
“I find myself going back to the same activities because I know they work”
“I don’t always have the same supplies around”
“Entertaining the kids in the car is a nightmare”
“I try to choose an activity that the kids will like”
Synthesizing the information
I sorted interviewees similar answers into categories to find patterns that will help us understand customers needs, wants, goals and pain points.
Categories I created through similar answers
Where parents/caretakers find activity ideas
Pain points
Children’s involvement in choosing activities
ideals
Miscellaneous
Kids ages
Factors considered when choosing an activity
Relationship to children
Activity frequency
Example of categorized answers from affinity map
What these findings mean practically
The setting
The need to come up with engaging activities often arises when the planned schedule is complete, there's an unexpected gap, or when you're in an unfamiliar or limited environment.
The search
Adults may feel stressed, tired, and under pressure, leaving them with little energy for brainstorming ideas. Searching for ideas online can be helpful but also time-consuming, leading them to default to familiar activities for a quick solution.
The ideal
Adults often wish they could bypass the step of filtering through activity ideas and simply receive suggestions, as time and energy constraints make it challenging to search for ideas on their own.
The activity
Although they prioritize the children’s enjoyment, adults ultimately suggest activities based on factors like , minimum supervision, potential messiness, children's ages, available supplies, and the children's energy levels.
Unsure which audience to target
At this point, I was at a crossroads, uncertain whether to target my app for educational purposes or for busy parents and caregivers. To determine the audience with higher demand, I organized and summarized my thoughts.
Plaiy thoughts up to this point
Empathizing with our audience to then define them
After my brain dump I realized that parents and caretakers had a greater need, as educational resources are typically prepared in advance, while this app is designed for last-minute assistance.
Educators have also access to a broader range of resources and tend to engage in more extensive networking opportunities.
Although I had a general audience, I wanted to get more specific and wasn’t prepared to create a persona so I created an empathy map to make sure I really understood who we’re catering to.
Plaiy empathy map
Defining our audience
I was finally able to narrow down the persona to something that really felt targeted and beneficial.
Each persona has a slightly different circumstances, however both share the goal of trying to keep their kids busy as quickly and as hassle free as possible.
Plaiy User personas
I’d like to find a way for parents or caretakers to be able to find activities under any circumstance, that doesn't burden them with excessive time and effort, and makes it easier for them to provide engaging experiences for their kids.
Solution
How might we?…
Create a user-friendly platform that helps parents and caregivers quickly discover a wide range of engaging, on-demand activities for their children?
Create a resource that helps parents and caregivers find engaging activities children will enjoy without requiring extensive time and effort on their part?
Staying focused by organizing solutions
Plaiy caters to an audience who values their own time and energy while ensuring a fun experience for their children. While there could be many fun solutions we need to focus on features that would align with these priorities specifically.
Plaiy effort vs impact solution chart
Chosen features backed by research
Plaiy feature set
The general outline of plaiy
I decided to create an onboarding activity filtering system that allows users to specify things like kids interest, time, location, supplies etc. and then have the AI bot generate the ideas.
There would be a way to have a kids profile saved so that instead of adding interests and age again, the user can just select the kids profile or multiples kids and generate activities for them based on the info that’s already saved about them.
The same is with a material list. For example, the user doesn’t need to reselect everything they have at home again if they keep a saved list and can just click to generate using the inventory list every time.
Lastly, users can save and rate activities if they liked something specific and so they can go back to them quickly in the future.
Structuring features based on their significance and hierarchy
The app is intended for quick and easy use and therefore has four main navigations with a basic structure.
Plaiy site map
Providing a reliable experience
Before putting anything on paper, I wanted to map out every step of the user journey, to ensure a process with minimal errors to avoid frustration while using the app.
Plaiy user flow
Sketching out some ideas
Creating them in low fidelity
Logo and branding
The goal in designing this app was to strike a balance between creating a user-friendly product that resonated with adults and making it clear that it's meant for generating ideas for kids.
How this is achieved through the branding
Colors; Professional and trustworthy for adults (blue), playful and clear for kids (yellow).
Icon; The lightbulb bot is a fun way to represent ideas and makes users feel like the AI idea bot is who they’re communicating with.
Logo; Typography choice is intended to emit fun and playful vibes while being clean and simple. Yellow are the eyes of the bot icon.
Plaiy style tile
Usability testing
Having individuals who match the target audience use the prototype to test the app revealed the following key findings
Majority users clicked the plus before the form field but easily fixed their error without noticing
When specifying the location of the activity, many users skipped over the form field where to add details because they didn’t notice it
Unanimously, users favorite feature was being able to save a profile or a list and save time when generating.
Overall product satisfaction was scored high. Many users said they would use an app like this and felt it would was easy, fast, and beneficial.
Iterations
Creating reusable designs
Plaiy component library
Final Designs
Some of the final plaiy screens
Did we design a product that helps caretakers find engaging activities for their kids that benefits them too?
Impact
Practical areas of positive impact from plaiy
For the adults
Time-Saving: An activity app instantly suggests ideas, saving busy parents time.
Stress Reduction: The app eases parental stress by suggesting activities.
Creative Inspiration: It sparks fresh activity ideas, adding creativity to parenting.
For the kids
Variety: The app provides diverse activities to keep kids engaged and interested.
Education and Skill Development: It promotes educational and skill-based activities.
Adaptability: The app offers real-time suggestions based on circumstances, ensuring kids stay occupied and content on the go.
Moving forward
How will we determine success?
Listening to the feedback and encouragement of many people which already was received.
However, there are some concerns, such as making sure our AI consistently gives relevant and engaging activity ideas, which can be tricky. Making this app in real time would require trying to tackle this challenge as much as possible to make the project a success.
Next steps
Working on this project has taught me the critical importance of aligning the product directly with the customers' needs – that's the real key to success. That being said, it's crucial to consistently update the product, particularly with the integration of evolving AI technology, considering how kids' needs are always changing.