A fun interactive game experiences for young kids to learn and stay engaged.
Overview
Disney x BYJU'S Early Learn app offers personalized, interactive games featuring Disney's timeless stories and games across subjects like english, math and science for the age group of 3 to 8 year olds.
8 weeks - Pre production 20 weeks - Production & release
the Problem
Digital learning has become a part of our daily lives.
In recent years, the field of education has witnessed a surge in the adoption of e-learning methods, owing to their popularity among students. The primary advantage of such an approach lies in its flexibility, allowing students to learn at their own pace without any location or time constraints.
67% of parents with children aged 2 - 10 year olds, reported using educational media
According to a report by Research and Markets, the global e-learning market for preschoolers is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 33% during the period 2018-2020.
GOAL
To create interactive game experiences for young kids aged 3-6 years old, aimed at better learning and engagement.
SOLUTION
INTRO NARRATIVE
QUIZ EXPERIENCE
OuTRO NARRATIVE
RESEARCH
Understanding My AUDIENCE
The research team helped us gather insights by play-testing current market games with the children of 3 - 6year olds and interviewing their parents.
This lead us to a better understanding of the needs and we spotted some recurring themes.
Engagement
Keeping young children engaged in classroom or at home isn't always easy, indicating the need for interactive learning tools like games that can help keep children engaged and motivated.
MOTIVATION
The lack of motivation among young children in early education system highlights the need for interactive and engaging teaching methods like games that can motivate children to learn.
PLAY BASED LEARNING
Play-based learning is an effective way to enhance children's cognitive, social, and emotional development. Interactive games can help strike a balance between learning and play, providing children with a fun and engaging way to learn and grow.
MARKET ANALYSIS
G123 PRODUCT
The product for grades 123 had been released prior to my joining and they followed a very specific set of layouts and gametypes.
How did it perform?
QUIZZES RELEASED
150
USER ENGAGEMENT
57%
COUNTRIES RELEASED IN
2 ( India, USA)
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
A look into other competitors market, gave us some more depth into teaching styles, visuals, gameplay experience and overall depth of the games.
What are the biggest strengths of competing designs? What are the opportunity to stand out from the competition? What do we need to do to have a firm identity?
Mapping out the landscape of ed tech in terms of its market strength
What were the key opportunity areas that were identified?
Improved Layouts
Owing to the multitude of topics covered, we needed a layout format for the games, but ones that would be much flexible than the previous product.
Better Visuals
For the age group of 3 - 6 year olds, visuals, art and sound played a huge role in engagement. So the focus was to create in house art along with Disney assets.
SIMPLIFIED EXPERIENCE
From the market analysis and in house testing, play based learning was one of the best approaches for kids to learn. Simplicity of the experience also had engagement.
ITERATION
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
By collaborating with the game design and sound design team , we developed an overall architecture for the flow of the games along with different states.
WIREFRAMES
For the two types of interactions Tap & Drag, we designed low fidelity wireframes to determine the screen space for the elements.
Based on our division of screen space for both tap and drag games, we developed mid fi wireframes for 12 different game types. ( Match, Sort, Hidden objects, Count, MCQ etc)
GAME VISUALS
To add more unique Disney flavor , I designed a color palette and grouped similar IP's across the Disney universe.
A total of 35 IP's were used.
PROTOTYPES
A lot of testing went through for finalizing game types that focused on learning as well as engagement
OUTCOME
IMPACT
QUIZZES RELEASED
300+
INCREASE IN USER ENGAGEMENT
35%
COUNTRIES RELEASED IN
3 ( India, USA, Canada)
LEARNINGS
cross functional collaboration
Collaboration and communicating with several different departments and vendors, and making sure everyone was on the same page with the overall idea required me to be extremely patient, show excellent communication skills and lead by example.
Leadership
Often, showing empathy towards peers, juniors and leadership wasn’t enough. I had to make tough decisions, resolve conflicts effectively, foster a healthy working culture by being compassionate towards others and encourage strategic thinking at all levels.
Stakeholder management
Communicating the same set of ideas, concept, solutions to different stakeholders in the project required me to improve my emotional intelligence and also learn the jargon for effective negotiation, feedback and approvals
IF I HAD A CHANCE TO REDO THIS PROJECT, I WOULD CONSIDER
USER ACTIVATION & ENGAGEMENT
I'm interested in experimenting with introducing storylines during the middle of game stages to see if it enhances user engagement and draws more users to the platform.
IMPACT ON A SYSTEMIC LEVEL
As I reflect on the product I worked on, I realize that it was merely a tiny component of a broader ecosystem. Given the existence of various video and game formats, I wonder how my concepts could evolve while still making a significant difference.