Problem

The school wanted to host a relaxing, delightful Halloween party to connect children and parents. However, the parent committee had trouble coming up with new games that children had never played before at school. The game had to allow children to be active while keeping them safe.

Research and Insights

I started my design process by talking to parents from the parent committee and understanding their top priorities when it comes to games for their children. The word "safety" was mentioned multiple times and most parents expressed the desire to participate in the game. When I asked about the kind of games their children prefer, most parents would sigh and say that their children would rather play or watch videos on their devices. When children were asked about what they wanted to do for Halloween, everyone was excited about collecting and eating candies. So I knew that whatever game we were about to design had to involve Halloween candies and perhaps a storyline that could attract children's attention like a video does.

Persona and User Journey

My target users were kindergarteners and their parents. After talking to multiple parents and a couple of children, here are some of my findings about the users:

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Challenge Statement

How might we maximize the fun for both young children and their parents with a quick easy game in a way that is safe and memorable?

Ideation

I worked closely with the head of the parent committee to determine the most appropriate game for our target users. The game has to be safe and fun with rules that a five-year-old could understand. We came up with many ideas and finally landed on an AR scavenger game idea where children could run around in a designated area and find candies. My initial research also showed that the children loved stories and characters so I decided to incorporate these two elements into my game design.

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Diving deep into interaction design...

There were many things to consider while designing game interactions for children. Instead of printing the back story and all instructions on paper, I decided to work with the head of the parent committee, also a content creator, to draft a script for an intro animation. The animation had to include many colors and tell the story as simply as possible. The children also needed their parents' help to access the "magic lens" on their smartphones. I noticed that having parents involved in the setup process was a great opportunity to convince parents to join the scavenger hunt. Once children found the candies, they would have to scan the candy logos to see whether the candy had power or not. The indication of power needs to be very simple but also engaging so I decided to include just an icon to showcase the type of power each candy might have. Choosing appropriate candies was also crucial for good interaction design because uneven candy wrappers might distort the scannable logos preventing the children from scanning successfully.

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Creation Process

Playtest and execution

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Main Takeaway

Most children had never played AR games before, but they did not have any trouble understanding the rules. Many were intrigued by the animation video in the beginning and had a lot of fun chasing after clues. Once they saw the AR clue on the map, each kid recognized the location and raced off. After finishing the game, every kid loved helping/watching other kids looking for candies. The children also incorporated the superpowers like "ice power", "flight power", and "strength power" into their playground play after the game. Many parents joined the game as well and formed a stronger bond with their children. However, the participants had some trouble scanning the shiny candy wrappers and some of their devices ran out of batteries before the game ends.

If I had more time...

I would like to include on-demand instructions as part of their AR experiences so they could have a better understanding of what they need to do next after finding each candy. I would also explore the possibility of converting the "magic lens" to web AR. Instagram and Facebook worked fine but some parents had trouble remembering their passwords.