How increasing engagement boosts toddler independence?

Core Values for Service Design: Poddler Case Study

Role: UX designer, UX Researcher, UI designer

Duration: 8 months. including 256 hours of observation and 3 layout design iterations

Tools: 1500 sq ft of physical space, Video recorder, Camera, Notepads, Montessori inspired furnishing and work materials for toddlers, Art and craft supplies, Microsoft excel, Figma, Miro, Slack, Google Drive, Facebook, Zoom

“The child cannot become a harmonious member of society without the company of others.” — Dr. Maria Montessori

Doing a works-like Prototype test for Noah and Jewel (the service design for Poddler) was an attempt to create an environment where parents can see a glimmer of something social for toddlers. Becoming something bigger than anyone could have ever imagined in a Pandemic.

This was not only useful to create value for the toddlers but also addresses the entire value ecosystem. Inclusive of hosts and participating parents.

A ‘tangible’ element to an otherwise ‘intangible’ service

A well-considered plan with a ‘physical element’ added to the service design introduces a component to a toddler experience. Once the toddler has experienced the service design it is gone forever. Except in memory.

Using service design intelligently can have a positive effect on customer loyalty. As evident in referral rates, physical items continue to evoke memory triggers for a considerable period of time post the actual toddler experience.

Next, let us see how we prototyped Poddler's Service Design.

For this article, we will focus on POD participation

To start with the POD prototype, we did some secondary research for what the environment for the toddler would look like in a POD.

We then also did some secondary research and found a few principles from Dr. Maria Montessori’s research to be very helpful in designing the environment prototype.

“Education is not what the teacher gives, education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual… by his individual… by his experiences upon the environment.” — Dr. Maria Montessori

The three components that make a toddler environment

1. Children who are in the same plane of development.

For the essentiality of individual development and social cohesion, there must be mixed ages within the group of children. The reason for this type of group with mixed ages is similar to the structure in a family.

Dr. Montessori writes, “This fact makes such a difference, that if one were to put all the ones of the same age together, there would be no success, and it would be impossible to apply our method.” Generally, one-third of the class are five-year-olds who have been with the class for two years, one-third are four-year-olds who have been with the class for one year, and one-third are brand new three-year-olds. (The Child, Society, and the World, p. 64–65).

2. Materials and activities must match the needs and work.

The next component in the prepared environment consists of the materials and activities that match the needs and work of the children in that stage of development. One should understand that it’s not just any materials and activities.

To further toddler’s general development, they need purposeful and specifically those materials and activities to stimulate the interest.

The environment should be able to stimulate the child’s mental and physical involvement, it should be rich in learning activities for the absorbent mind.

The materials should not be designed with the aim to “teach facts,” instead they are designed with the motive of increasing the child’s capacity for learning, they help to make it possible for the child to continually reorganize everything he has experienced previously in relation to this new information.

Here it is very important to note that-

While setting up the environment it should not only have the reflection of this distinction that — all the materials and activities are ‘purposeful’, but the environment setup should also make sure that it is protecting the child from all obstacles towards the usage of these materials and performing activities for his growth.

3. An understanding Adult.

A trained adult who understands child development can prepare and maintain a special environment. This adult can connect the children to the materials and activities within their environment.

To set up the POD prototype, we kept the above components as our spine for laying the Prototype.

We recruited 6 Noahs and Jewels and conducted 37 observed POD sessions.

Below is the first layout for our service prototype.

We observed the following problems in our first layout:

• Noah and Jewel were using a few shelves over and over.

• Few shelves were going unexplored repeatedly.

• Noah and Jewel would mix the Art Easel with Window coloring and washing.

We tried mapping the Noah and Jewel for their movement in the POD with the heat map:

We observed that the shelves remaining unexplored were:

• Visually not placed at Noah and Jewel’s eye level.

• Unexplored shelves had some decor /furnishing around them, leading to a complex visual — which leads Noah and Jewel to unconsciously miss those shelves.

So we experimented following changes in the layout

• Improving Visual hierarchy: Placing shelves at eye level.

• Reducing Features: Decluttering furnishing around shelves.

• Law of Prägnanz: Moving furniture and Plants around to simplify the layout for better visual clarity of Noah and Jewel

Iterating the design Thrice

Having done these changes in the layout three times, we were able to achieve a layout that invited maximum exploration from Noah and Jewel.

Other challenges while operating Prototype:

Indoor hygiene- Water and self-care station :

One of the bottlenecks for the service prototype was safety, specifically indoors — Indoor distancing of Noah and Jewel and avoiding usage of common tap and sink was of most important to avoid Toddlers Germ transmission.

To solve this problem, our team came up with a simple idea and created separate water and a self-care station for each child.

We placed a low-level floor shelf with:

• Portable water can (filled with drinking water),

• A basin (to wash hands),

• A soap bar,

• A hand towel,

• Few wash rags (to wipe the spills), and

• Facial tissues (for toddlers to keep themselves clean and tidy.

As toddlers would enter the POD area, the first thing they do would be wash their hands. This took a few days of handholding with parents but quickly they were independent in washing their hands all by themselves!

But, this was not the end, we encountered another problem — Identifying water stations:

We observed, toddlers were not recalling their water stations and would be using each other stations.

So we suggested parents bring a picture of their toddler which we can place/hang around water stations to help toddler recognize their stations.

And we hung them for each toddler on their respective stations and boom!

The picture idea was attention-grabbing for toddlers. It eliminated the chance of mistaking the station and soon toddlers recognized their own station and did not use another child.

How testing the service prototype helped us in identifying a Red route for the Poddler’s app?

We also realized it was imperative to prototype the POD before we launch the platform for them. It was also a good idea to release and test our iterations many times through the process while we were working on the app prototype.

For example, We had experienced during the testing of the Learning POD, where for everyone’s safety and pandemic precautions, we could not allow a sick child/family in POD. And this led us to add a Red-Route — Editing the POD bookings.

Iterative Process

One of the main features of services design is not avoiding making mistakes but learning from them. This was achieved by prototyping and testing the layout multiple times.

Three core learnings were:

• Overcome Toddler Dependence by Placing items eye-level to increase engagement and independence.
• Avoid Toddlers Germ transmission using Pictures to increase memory recognition.
• Dodge Toddler Messes by placing different materials in proximity to increase cleanliness.

Dr. Maria Montessori wrote: “It is the society of little children who are guided by the magical powers of nature. We must value it and treasure it because neither character nor social sentiment can be given by teachers. They are products of life.”

Next, we did an accessibility test with Works like prototype test for Noah and Jewel to socialize with toddlers having temporary mobility disabilities in a POD setting. Read further at — Accessibility test of Poddler.

Reference:

• The Absorbent Mind, “Cohesion in the Social Unit” p. 234.

• Education for New World, p.3.