DANI: The AI Dragon
Background
It is imperative to develop AI literacy and foster children’s engagement with and exposure to AI-tech ecosystems. Early exposure to AI literacy can promote self-efficacy and interest among children. Despite the efforts of existing solutions, the available infrastructure for promoting AI literacy to early elementary age (K-2) children does not meet all needs.
Overview
My role
Lead UI/UX Designer in a team of 2 designers and 3 developers
Overview
Objective
Design a platform to introduce families to AI concepts and the ethics surrounding emerging technologies and to promote and positively shape children’s self-efficacy and engagement surrounding computing topics.
Scope
May-December 2022
Internship
Outcome
A 50% increase in children engagement and parent satisfaction with our newly implemented system.
Our Contributors
Our solution expands upon past research at Stanford University, conducted by Professor Elizabeth Murnane.
Research
I began the design process by conducting primary and secondary research in order to better understand the user demographics and the AI gaming industry.
Topic Research
I conducted academic research on issues such as AI literacy, educational gaming, and family-centered learning.
Early exposure prepares students to leverage AI knowledge further along the educational path.
Family-centered learning promotes teamwork and communication while building children’s AI literacy.
Voice-based interfaces ensure accessibility to lower age ranges (5-to 8-year-olds).
Market Research
I conducted market research in order to understand gaming industry standards and key features of AI games.
Most of the infrastructure is geared towards older populations of kids, often teens.
AI games often require a physical component, which usually poses some financial accessibility barriers.
None of the games address the ethical considerations surrounding AI
User Interviews
I interviewed 6 child-parent pairs about their access to technology, interest in Artificial Intelligence, thoughts and feelings surrounding the introduction of ethics at a young age, and experiences with AI games.
After conducting interviews, I pulled several key highlights, quotes, and other findings from each one and compiled them in a color-coded manner based on similar themes. Using a simple Affinity Diagram can help us discover embedded patterns (and sometimes break old patterns) of thinking by sorting and clustering language-based information into relationships.
Based on this activity, I was able to identify several major themes:
1. Technology access
Most kids have access to a family iPad and are comfortable with interactions like tapping, swiping, and zooming. So, our platform had to be designed for iPads.
2. Family learning
Families also play a pivotal role to a child’s learning by developing their interpersonal skills and understanding the different facets of AI and its social impact.
3. Inclusive AI ethics
AI literacy includes grasping the ethical aspects related to using and building AI tools. Promoting discussions in AI ethics can be done efficiently through story-based learning.
User Persona
I combined my earlier research with data I got from my user interviews in order to create a persona representative of the target market.
From creating the user personas, I found that most kids struggle with tech literacy and accessibility.
Despite their differences, users share the common goals of wanting to learn more about AI technologies, improving their tech literacy, and promoting ethical considerations.
Information Architecture
Based on my research insights and persona, I began to categorize and structure the information based on what was most useful, usable, and user-friendly.
User Flow
I created a user map in order to visualize a user’s path through the platform, first through the onboarding module that introduces DANI’s story, AI literacy, and logins players, the mini-games that targets ‘Searching and Decision Trees’ as an AI concept, and the learning module which exposes families to learning about and discussing different topics in AI ethics.
On-boarding Module Userflow
Tree Explorer Userflow
Ethics Module Userflow
Greyscale Wireframes
I came up with a few low fidelity greyscale wireframes for the minigame and the ethics module, in order to determine which components worked best together and what the ideal layout and interactions look like.
Tree Explorer Home
Grid for choosing object
Grid (scroll down)
Guessing starts
Yes/No Questions
Answer
Ethics Home
Spin or random choice
Spinning wheel
AI Ethics Topics
Summary
UI Design
UI Kit
First, to decide on the intelligent agent that guides the child through the game, a few criteria had to be met:
The agent needs to look friendly.
It needs to be a nonreal creature to avoid children’s association of AI with organic creatures.
I ultimately decided on a dragon called Dani. The name is gender-neutral intentionally to accurately represent AI’s genderless existence.
Before moving the wireframes into the final design, I explored some different styles and created a UI kit that I then used to create the final design.
Task Flow UI
Create a profile
Choose a profile
Home Menu
Tree Preview
Sample Question
Answer Reveal
Ethics topic selection
Ethics story
Discussion questions
Usability Testing
To evaluate the efficacy of the Decision Tree minigame and the Ethics Module, I conducted usability tests on 4 participants.
The main areas for improvement were that children were easily distracted during the story-telling part of the ethics module that was conducted entirely verbally and desire for confirmation from Dani about the path that led them to the answer.
Final Version
After analyzing and prioritizing the user feedback, I iterated over the design and updated the prototype.
Onboarding Module
Ethics Module
Prototype
Feel free to look at the figma pages or play with the prototypes:
Tree Explorer Minigame
Reflection
This project challenged me to empathize and work with a group of people that I was entirely unfamiliar with. Working with this particular user group taught me to be flexible and creative in my approach. It was almost impossible to predict what the kids were going to say or do during the interviews, so I had to roll with everything. Although working with the kids required a lot of patience and persistence, the user interviews often felt like a play area more than a testing session.
This project also taught me the complexities of designing novel products that require a large level of commitment. It is only after we take the time to understand the thoughts and feelings of the user that we can effectively support them through these processes
Next Steps
Design is never finished, so my next steps would be:
Conduct more usability testing on users
Design the dashboard that allows parents to track their children’s activity on the app.