Kid Architect Book Series Web Application Design
Digitalized the children book series with avatars and gamification, increasing engagement by 40%.
ROLE
Product designer,
Content manager
SERVICE
Application design
DURATION
4 months | 2023
Web application
Under development
In One Glance
OVERVIEW
Kid Architect is a book series by Gary Vance that introduces children to the world of architecture through engaging stories and hands-on activities. What makes this series unique is its character-free approach that allows readers of all backgrounds to imagine themselves as the protagonist.
CHALLENGE
Despite its unique approach of having no specific character to promote inclusivity, the series struggled to fully connect with its young audience.
SOLUTION
Kid Architect Tour web app with customized avatars
Video tutorials for hands-on activities
Website redesign
Low engagement with book content
Poor completion rates of hands-on activities
Limited audience diversity
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
As part of a cross-functional team, I was specifically responsible for gamifying and digitalizing the book's content through the Kid Architect Tour web application.
Created semi-virtual tours that blend digital exploration with physical visits, encouraging parent-child interaction at book locations.
Designed a discovery game that transforms architectural concepts from the books into interactive digital challenges.
Collaborated with the Graphic Designer to create customizable avatars allowing children to design their own character, enhancing the series' character-free approach while boosting inclusivity.
Had a trip to one of the book’s locations to create content and plan accurate tour, test the user journey, estimate time, identify potential obstacles, and gather content for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
RESULT
User satisfaction and engagement enhanced by 40% after the final usability test.
The Journey: From Pages to Pixels
Understanding the Challenge
Our journey began with three hypotheses:
Educational books struggle to maintain children's interest
Architecture feels distant to young minds
Books without characters might limit engagement
Team brainstorming assumption session
Enhancing user diversity & inclusion
Building a brand
Interactive activities & engaging learning tools
What are the business priorities?
After that we had a card sorting session with author Gary Vance to understand his priorities.
K-12 children and their parents/guardians
We faced a new challenge: serving both K-12 children and their parents while staying true to the author's vision, existing content, and business priorities.
Who are the Target Audience?
Children as primary users and their parents as key purchasers and facilitators.
Detective Work: Uncovering Users Truths
Our investigation took us through multiple ways:
Field Research
Observed children at Indianapolis Children's Museum and Lego Store.
Competitive Analysis
Evaluated both direct and indirect competitors.
Secondary Research
Conducted white paper research on effective ways for children education.
Expert Insight
Conducted 9 interviews with architects and architecture students.
At the Children's Museum and Lego Store, we discovered the power of family engagement. Children spent more time and were more likely to complete activities when parents joined in, compared to solo play.
Learning Together: The Family Factor
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Multiple channels
Personalized content
Relatable characters
Three Keys to Children’s Learning
Research showed that children learn best through:
The result shows activities done with parents played a significant role in sparking children’s interest in architecture.
Where Architects Begin
Conducted nine interviews with architects and architecture students, revealing a powerful pattern: early exposure to architecture through family activities sparked lasting interest.
I think a lot of it was my mom really just dropping hint to me...So she would build, We, I remember as a little kid, you know, probably kindergarten age or earlier, we would just build little block bowling alleys just out of just blocks.
What drove me towards architecture was when I was about, I believe like 14 or 15, my, my dad decided we should build our own house. So that, that process really drove me to do architecture.
— Architecture Student
When I was a kid my father was a photographer and we would go take architectural photography a lot. So there was a little bit of interest coming from that as well.
— Architect
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— Architect
Observation
Interviews
White paper
Characters
Characters
Multichannel
approach
Parental involvement
Parental involvement
Parental
involvement
Hands-on activities
Hands-on
activities
Hands-on
activities
Hands-on activities
Hands-on
activities
Hands-on activities
Tailored curricula
Characters
Data Analysis
The Gap in Children's Architecture Learning
Our competitive analysis revealed a gap: while most children's architecture content used characters and multichannel approaches, few successfully balanced digital engagement with physical exploration.
Social Media Presense
App Integration
Website
Educational Resources
Hands-on Activities
Character-focused
Direct
Competitors
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Indirect
Competitors
The result of analyzing three architecture application for kids shows children apps in architecture are limited to simplified 3D design.
Insights
Our direct competitors engage children with limited characters and hands-on activities beyond the books.
There’s an opportunity for digitalizing book’s content and representing diverse audience and engaging apps that teach children about architecture.
Tinkercad
Blokify
Solidworks
From Insights to Action
Crafting the Solution
To maximize quality and efficiency, our team split into focused work streams, each tackling a crucial piece of the project. Here are my contributions to this part of the project:
Ideation
Sketched initial concepts for digitalizing the Kid Architect book’s content.
Authentic Experience
Had a field trip to Columbus, IN to ensure authentic experience design.
Co-creation Workshop
Presented the idea to the business holder and had a storyboarding co-creation session.
Prototype & Validation
Created a prototype of the solution concept, tested it with our target audience and made iterations.
The whiteboard that I sketched the digitalization ideas on
Avatars
Parents involvement
Gamified education
Connecting The Dots: The Eureka moment!!!
Leveraging insights from user research and competitive analysis, I started sketching ideas for creating a more engaging way of presenting the Kid Architect book’s content keeping in mind our key research findings and our brainstorming session solutions.
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The initial User flow and app features
Taking approval for the suggested solutions
Co-creating numerous ideas
Adjusting the initial user flow
Improving the design solutions implementation
Involving the stakeholder in the design process
In order to get the business holder ideas and ensure our goal alignment, I presented the idea to him through a co-creation session:
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The actual pictures from the book's pages
Avatar Selection
City Selection
State Selection
Starting the Tour
First Building Info
Taking photo of the architectural element
Seeing Result and discover more
Discovery game
According to Common Sense Media, 42% of kids have a phone by age 10. By age 12, it's 71%. By 14, it's 91%. So, I started with the phone design of 2 main user flows.
Real-World Validation with Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Creating a mid-fidelity prototype with colors and visuals make it more appropriate to test the prototype with kids. It also helped me avoiding complications with later iterations. Inspired by the book’s pages, I created the mockup to test the solution concept.
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Comparing the photo with the element
The app increased children’s engagement in the books content by 40%.
Kids loved the discovery game.
They wanted to customize their avatars.
Parents liked the combination of education with an outdoor activity that they are involved in.
Children showed interest in reading the book itself and learn more about the locations in the game.
—10 year old girl
When I read about places, it makes me feel to go there and explore it.
40% boost in engagement
I tested the mid-fi prototype with 4 kids and their parents to gauge engagement, usability, and gather feedback on missing features and potential additions. I found out the following results:
BEFORE
Design iteration based on the children's feedback
Based on the test findings “Kids wanted to customize their avatars”, and didn’t want them to look “childish” .
I changed the avatar selections into a customizable avatars.
AFTER
Customizable avatar
Prepared avatars to select
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Field trip to
Columbus, IN
To create an accurate tour, test the user journey, estimate time between locations, identify potential obstacles, and gather content for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), I did a field trip to Columbus, IN (one of the books' locations) and visited all the sites. Also, recorded the author, Gary Vance’s voice for the app, as kids preferred hearing the author talk about the places.
The Final Design & Reflections
High-fidelity Prototype
Next steps:
The project is under development.
Result:
Increased user engagement after the final usability test by 40%.
Key lessons learned:
Be straightforward about your thoughts and feelings to avoid misunderstandings that might derail the main goal.
Let go of possessiveness over ideas, actively involve others, and embrace teamwork to produce better results.
Listen actively to understand others’ perspectives—sometimes we’re saying the same thing in different ways.
Effective teamwork relies on communication and collaboration to create a positive experience for everyone involved.
Recognized the importance of clear communication within the team to ensure a collaborative effort.
Outcomes, Takeaways, Reflections
Other Projects
Let's create future experiences together :)
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