Stamp & Score
Caption OVERVIEW
LexieBox is an interactive card dispenser created to support parents raising children in multilingual households. It contains daily prompt cards focused on language learning and exploring culture.
LexieBox is an interactive card dispenser created to support parents raising children in multilingual households. It contains daily prompt cards focused on language learning and exploring culture.
ROLE
Product Design
UX Research
Product Design
UX Research
TOOLS
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
TIMEFRAME
8 weeks
8 weeks
TEAM MEMBERS
Kaitlyn Ellington
Katherine Dawson
Esha Nalla
Joy Yao
Kaitlyn Ellington
Katherine Dawson
Esha Nalla
Joy Yao
DESIGN PREVIEW
Key Features
The Cards
For parents and children to complete together; each card has an activity or a question focused on either language learning or exploring culture.
Card sets are customized based on a child’s age, language proficiency, and the language being learned. A leveling system offers an exciting challenge without frustration.
For parents and children to complete together; each card has an activity or a question focused on either language learning or exploring culture.
Card sets are customized based on a child’s age, language proficiency, and the language being learned. A leveling system offers an exciting challenge without frustration.
The Box
The cards are stored in the fun and friendly “Lexie,” a reusable container that dispenses a card of the day with a simple turn of the knob.
After talking to parents, we realized the importance of an engaging form, particularly in an educational product.
The box itself can be refilled monthly with new cards delivered each month.
PROMPT & PROBLEM
Parents in multilingual households are interested in sharing their cultural heritage with their children...
However, children often don’t share the same interest and engagement, eventually losing their ties to culture and language as they get older.
Mindful Parenting
Parents in multilingual households are interested in sharing their cultural heritage with their children...
However, children often don’t share the same interest and engagement, eventually losing their ties to culture and language as they get older.
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
Contextual Inquiry
We held interviews with three parents and one teacher of multilingual children over video call.
We gathered children’s books, cartoons, and workbooks (referenced or given by interviewees) and considered their design and content.
Multilingual parents were very invested in sharing their language and culture with their children. They cited factors like consistency, cultural curiosity, and engagement as critical to language learning.
Parents were also concerned with their children losing their cultural ties. Many parents had relatives abroad that they wanted their children to be able to connect with.
OUR CHALLENGE
How might we create a resource that supports parents in fostering their children's engagement and curiosity surrounding their native language and culture?
ITERATING (...AND ITERATING)
Ideation
...However, we realized that most of our ideas were focused nearly entirely on the child.
Rather than assisting a parent in their endeavor to teach their child, these concepts simply helped a child translate in a fun way.
Our 60 ideation sketches.
Posters of the three developed topics we chose during down selection.
Not only would this fulfill our goals of engagement and interest, it would also be far more accessible for consistent use.
USER RESEARCH
Participatory Design Workshop
We found that, when parents tried to encourage their child to speak in their cultural language, the child, uninterested, would respond in English.
Afterwards, we provided a card box with sample prompts in a family’s cultural language. Here, we discovered two key issues to consider in our future prototyping:
- The cards were far too easy, and there did not seem to be room for teaching from the parents.
- When we asked children what would motivate them to complete these cards, they strayed from general prizes (stickers, figures, etc. that we had in mind) and focused on their personal interests.
Customizability, we learned, is key.
MORE ITERATION
Prototyping
Taking our insights from the workshop, we recognized that it would be best to allow parents to lead the prize system. Rather than a generic reward, this would allow each child to receive a prize they value.
Similarly, we also decided to apply a level system to further customizability and usefulness for each child.
Throughout our concept storyboard, we found it important to emphasize the engaging activities and regular use.
To create a product that truly benefits multilingual families, we knew we had to make sure it fit with real parents and children. Thus, in our user feedback report, we aimed to get feedback from our participants (a 9 y/o boy, his father, and a mother of an infant & toddler) on four key elements:
Aesthetics of our design (for both the cards and the packaging)
Potential for long-term engagement, particularly in a diverse range of age groups
Any barriers families may face for daily usage
Customizability to a child’s age and language proficiency
Similarly, they found our name at the time—“Legendary Linguists”—to be too much of a mouthful and too complex for children, leading us to adopt a new title based on “lexicon,” the vocabulary of a person or language.
From then on, much of our prototyping focused on trying to encapsulate a fun yet simplistic form for our newly named “LexieBox.”
Some of my form sketches & an early prototype! Shape based on the letter “L” for “Lexie.”
Finalized render and 3D-printing (by Industrial Design teammate, Katherine).
We made icons and characters based on each activity type.
I formatted the cards (& kept consistency) through the use of Figma components.
FINAL DELIVERABLE
LexieBox
WHAT I LEARNED
My Takeaways
Design is a process, and iterating is crucial to creating a developed and impactful product. And, more likely than not, these changes will be for the better.
Overall, this was my first team project of this scale, and the results were incredibly rewarding. Thank you to my team, I couldn’t have done it without you all!