Young children have different needs than adults. Family History can meet many of those needs. FamilySearch Jr. was a hackathon project that we whipped together in two days based on a lot of previous research. We recognize the name FamilySearch Jr. is wrong for the intended audience, but it was to get the point across to those we presented to: this is for kids.
I worked with a great team of designers, Bryant Hodson, Kevin Dewey, and Eliza Jensen. We put together a presentation that I wish I could share publicly. If you are interested contact me and we can talk more.
The basic premise is that there are certain short activities that the youth could do, outside of the app, with their families to learn more about themselves, their family, and to prepare to serve in the temple.The basic loop is "Select an activity, do the activity offline to learn the principle, come back to the app and record their impressions, and unlock a digital experience that builds upon the principle they learned." Each activity builds in to a firm understanding of Who they are, How they fit in, and the foundational principles of Family History and the Gospel.
The basic premise is that there are certain short activities that the youth could do, outside of the app, with their families to learn more about themselves, their family, and to prepare to serve in the temple.The basic loop is "Select an activity, do the activity offline to learn the principle, come back to the app and record their impressions, and unlock a digital experience that builds upon the principle they learned." Each activity builds in to a firm understanding of Who they are, How they fit in, and the foundational principles of Family History and the Gospel.
Here's a little on our process. This picks up after several months of contextual inquiry and other methods of research as well analyzing and synthesizing the data.
We spent the first day and a little of the second analyzing the research for an opportunity, and nailing down what our objective was. Yep, whiteboards...
Then we lined out a script. Since this was a hackathon, we wanted to scope the UI to what we would present in our presentation. We didn't have time to design anything but what was absolutely necessary. Shoot, we didn't even have time for that either.
I wish I had a better shot of the team, but here's the back and sides of our heads as we talked with Steve (in the suit) about what we were doing.
During the initial launch we ask them a series of questions that they can answer using their microphone. We'd use speech to text to capture that in a formatted way. We'd preserve the original audio file as part of a time capsule for generations to enjoy (who doesn't want to hear their 11 year old grandpa).
The activities screen their first time in. The Time Capsule activity is completed during the Onboarding Process; after they complete the next two the rest of the activities would be unlocked.
Church News article "Putting 'the family' into Family History", February 24, 2019. These concepts were recognized by the press as the activities caught-on and were embraced by families.
Again, I wish there was more on this I could share publicly. Contact me if you'd like to know more.
