Kom bli med!
Rock, Paper, Scissors - a strategy for building strong Children's Communities
"Previously we were born into the community and had to fight to become an individual. Today we are born as individuals, but must fight for a place in the community"
The Expert Committee
Team and role
During the fall of 2018, the "Kom bli med!" app idea was part of the NTNU Spinoff Accelerator program. This program fosters cooperation between private and public sector innovation. As part of the private sector innovation community, I participated in this program, and teamed up with the managers from Ladesletta Kindergartens, to help them bring a prototype to life, as a UX/UI designer.
Problem
When neighborhoods grow rapidly, due to immigration and an influx of new residents, it can lead to cliques forming among children and young people, potentially fostering feelings of exclusion. This phenomenon can also extend to the development of social cliques among adults.
Goal
Through the accelerator program, my goal was to help the kindergarten bring their app idea to life, by making an interactive prototype. At the end of the program, the managers would present the work and the prototype in front of a panel of experts and directors from Trondheim municipality.
User research and discovery
I helped and coached the kindergarten managers to do design research with parents in the kindergarten, who were the target users for their app idea. Interviews were performed ad hoc as parents dropped off or picked up their kids in the kindergarten. Together we analyzed the results and performed user testing with the prototype as I was designing it.
The parents highly commended the idea and the prototype. There existed online groups on other platforms for the parents in the kindergarten, such as Facebook, but some parents were reluctant to use the Facebook app, as they found it overwhelming. Other families in the protection program were simply unable to use these types of open platforms and appreciated the thought of a secure app coming from the municipality.
Reframing the problem
The purpose of the app idea was to support community building. The app was not to be a social platform, it was to be a tool for people to make appointments, meet and do activities together as children and parents who belonged to the same neighborhood kindergarten.
Our app needed to be barebone and make it easy to do the one thing it was meant to do; schedule and join activities set up by other parents in the kindergarten, with some light communication within the specific activities. In other words, it needed to show a clear purpose to differentiate itself from other social and communication platforms through functionality and design.
Outcome
By the end of the program, we were able to showcase the prototype in front of the panel of experts and directors from Trondheim municipality, who celebrated the idea and wanted to take it further.
Reflections
It was rewarding and frustrating to be a part of the NTNU Spinoff Accelerator program with the kindergarten managers. The app was a wonderful idea and solved a real problem. But the spinoff program left the participants hanging. How to support the municipal innovators, and take their ideas further was not solved. I kept checking in with the kindergarten managers to see how they were coming along, but in the end, I am unsure if their idea came to fruition.