Innovating with children and parents

This project involved teaching children and parents how to use design tools and processes. First, they identified a challenge and then they used design skills to explore and solve it. Partners included the Institute of Making, OhBot OhBot and Accenture's Accent on Family group.

What we did

We took twenty children and their parents through a series of playful learning exercises designed by child psychology and user experience design specialists inside The XDs.

The children used a mix of design-based tools to identify a problem. They explored it using drawing, modelling and storytelling methods, and created prototype solutions too.

The children learned fast and after a yoga chill-out exercise, they used Scratch (a coding language) and an OhBot - a programmable robot head with moving eyes, eyelashes, mouth and ears - to express how they felt.

Outcomes

Parents and children had fun together
Good model for therapeutic use
Visibility of issues for children
Coherent problem articulation
Useful ideas to solve problems
Better problem-solving capacities
New research/ analysis skills
New logic/ coding skills
Better creative/ sketching/ story skills
Improved team play/ sharing skills