Ethical and Age-appropriate Content Space for Kids: A Safety Net for Parents

Creating content applications for children is challenging. They are one  of  the  hardest  user  groups  to  work  with  due  to  needing  a different  approach  compared  to  adults.  Children  have  a lower concentration level and they develop quicker compared to adults, needing constant changes in the designed environment. On top of that they are not the only users of content applications, parents are too.  Most  of  the  current  services  offer  only  filtered  content  for children  below  the  age  of  12  and  lack  proper  educational and ethical  solutions. Thus,  I  am  working  on  this  project  with  an industry partner, Telia Estonia, who is also my employer, in order to gain input for a part of their TV service focused on kids.

Due to my own personal interest in the field and it being suitable for this project I went with a modified Service Design approach. This  approach  is ideal for  large  scale  projects  that  require understanding the users’ needs and motivations. I decided to put my focus on parents as they are the ones making the initial choice when it comes to choosing a content service for their child. Parents are lacking quality information about raising a child and there is not enough of a support system to help with that. Many parents are working full time and even when at home they still need more time to complete household tasks. Based on my research, I aim to make parents' lives easier in those challenging moments, by providing a solution  that  keeps  their  children  safe  when  parents feel overwhelmed.

Following  my  research,  I  offer  a  new  concept  for  Telia  TV  kids service with the main focus on preschoolers but including primary school children as well. I try to question the current way of doing a content  application  for  kids,  which  should  be  more  than  just  a space with filtered content. The solution aims to bring more clarity and ethical aspects when it comes to media consumption. In many cases  parents  do  not  give  their  children  these  solutions  out  of laziness or lack of interest, more that they simply lack the time to look after their child every minute of the day. For those moments I aim to bring the parent comfort and knowledge that what their kid is consuming is educational and interactive. Something that goes above the meaning of bare media consumption and more to the realm of a personal caregiver.