Doodle Buds The Augmented Art App For Kids
The Process Book By RenĂŠe Carraggi
How it All Began This project was derived from a passion for helping people, which started when I was a kid. Both of my parents worked in hospitals and whenever I came to visit them I would love to watch all of the important work happening around me. I wanted to make a difference in a person’s life like my parents did, I wanted to help people. However, after discovering that becoming a doctor required lots of time in school and chemistry classes too, I decided to stick with my other passion - art. In the meantime, I found different ways of helping others and started volunteering. While volunteering for the Jimmy Fund I heard countless incredible and heartbreaking stories form families and patients, and I couldn’t help but think of an experience of my own. When I was in the fourth grade, my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer a second time. Even though they caught it very early and were able to remove it completely, I was a kid and didn’t understand the complexities. At the time, I equated cancer to death, and when seeing the Jimmy Fund children, I couldn’t even imagine what fears they must have being the ones with cancer themselves. I knew then that I would blend my two passions into my degree project to help pediatric cancer patients in any way I could.
Renée Carraggi Degree Project Proposal
THE IN-PATIENT EXPERIENCE Around the corner from MassArt at 300 Longwood Avenue sits the number one ranked children’s hospital in the United States, Boston Children’s Hospital. Boston Children’s not only has the top doctors in the country, but also has plenty of resources for patients and families in all modalities of care. Social interaction is crucial for pediatric cancer patients’ development and helps them step away from their current situation. Another method of emotional healing for cancer patients has been through art. Art therapy has been extremely successful in allowing patients to express their emotions and creativity. With this degree project, I hope to connect patients to the space they are in as well as other cancer patients and survivors, doing so through art and technology. Ever since I was a young girl, I loved helping people. I was the first to rush to friends with alcohol wipes, neosporin, and band aids when anyone had a minor scrape, and I found myself diagnosing unseen problems my peers complained about by the age of 12. With both parents working in hospitals and my mother being a cancer survivor riddled with the lifelong effects of chemotherapy, I grew up in hospitals. I had the luxury of often being a visitor rather than a patient, and so I never had a deep fear of them. I could see fear on faces around me as I visited my mother or father, and I knew there were people who had to live in these hospitals, terrified of what the next day may bring. As much as I wanted to become a nurse or doctor, my anxiety held me back, but now I am given another chance to help people in a different role. My audience is specifically pediatric cancer patients. Only 4% of federal government cancer research funding goes to study pediatric cancer (National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, 2018). Children have so much more of their life to live. Shouldn’t we be striving to improve on how to make the now more special? While chemotherapy and other treatment plans can be effective results in eliminating the cancer itself, these treatments are often emotionally and physically draining. My goal for this degree project is to help make time within the hospital a more enjoyable experience. This project would be best implemented as an interface that is co-created by the patients for the patients. Initially, I imagined the phone or tablet application would be three separate parts; one section of the app would be for sharing patient’s artwork and possibly creating purchasable products to sell online to collect donations towards the specific patient, similar to that which MD Anderson’s Hospital for Children currently does for their patients (MD Anderson Cancer Center, 2018). The second experience would be a place where patients can connect to other patients within the hospital as well as other hospitals. When researching what patients would like while going through treatment, 22 year old Bri from Southern California said one thing she would like most would be finding someone who “Gets It” (Miller, 2018). Finally, my third and most significant idea when originally thinking of this project, I imagined I could create an augmented reality feature to the app to make the patients artwork come to life. To keep more of an open mind when beginning this project, I plan to do extensive user research into what a patient would really want from this app so that I am not making uninformed assumptions throughout the designing process. Technology is advancing rapidly in the medical field, but most of the focus and research is towards curing cancer. While doctors and researchers strive for a cure to cancer, I, as a designer, will strive to make a better patient experience. Mental health and rehabilitation are extremely important to develop early on in a child’s life, and my hope is that with this interface, I can help them express themselves in a new way.
Sources: Boston Children’s Hospital, CHOC Children, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Brianna Miller, MedCity News, American Cancer Society, National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing
Early realizations
Over winter break, I emailed Boston Children’s and discovered quickly that they did not allow students to volunteer if it was related to a school project or something involving course credit. As an aspiring User Experience Designer, I really hoped to get the opportunity to work with my audience, so this was a huge bummer. During my research phase it took me awhile to get through the idea that I would not be able to talk to these patients on my own, but once I did come to this understanding, I became a better researcher because of it. The same can be said for my final deliverable,
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create an app involving art and augmented reality. There was a part of me that did not want to let go of this idea. In the end I didn’t really let go of it, but instead formed it into an app that was much meaningful for my audience through by using the research I had gained. It took a lot of brainstorming, writing down what would make me proud, discovering what kids want, what kids needed, and asking lots and lots of questions to create this app, and I’m so glad I did it.
Most of my research became focused around this one article I discovered by 22 year old Brianna Miller who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma right before her 21st birthday. This idea of finding someone who “gets it” struck me the most. Everyone wants someone who understands them, it’s one of our most primal human characteristics.
This one idea had me asking lots more questions...
Did children have the reso those people? What were is the socialization like for chi socialization affect children? meet others face-to-face? interactions? Do children kn diseases? Do they think abo they talk to one another onlin them in any sense? How do c can’t read or write yet interac needs being met yet? Did chi needed to find those peop solutions? What is the socializ pitals? How does socializatio children who can’t meet ot they gain social interactions? D about their diseases? Do the
ources they needed to find the current solutions? What ildren in hospitals? How does ? Are there children who can’t ? How do they gain social now how to talk about their out their disease often? Do ne? Has technology benefited children - any children - who ct with technology? Are their ildren have the resources they ple? What were the current zation like for children in hoson affect children? Are there thers face-to-face? How do Do children know how to talk ey think about their disease
Sorry. You get the point. There was a lot of questions, and I was determined to find the answers.
Many of the answers I found through articles, both scholarly and personal accounts, other answers I found through downloading (sometimes purchasing‌ guilty as charged) countless children’s apps. Testing how detailed the interfaces are, discovering what I liked, and reading ratings were all helpful tools in finding the right balance of practicality, usability, and fun, or what some may call the Most Viable Product (MVP).
The most useful tools I had in my toolbelt were named Silvia Lopez Chavez
Silvia is an Artist in Residence at Boston Children’s Hospital. From her I learned more about the inner workings of Children’s, and what it is like to create artwork with patients. She taught me about what her process is and how it fluctuates with age groups and patient care, how kids at Boston Children’s currently socialize, and how diverse the patients are. I asked her lots of patients, and got some really interesting answers.
and Erika Von Kelsch.
Erika Von Kelsch is a recent MassArt alumni and User Experience Designer at Zume Pizza in San Francisco. In talking to her, I was informed on how to avoid cliches in the work I’m doing, tips on staying with project goals, and to always prototype in any way possible to get feedback on things you never would’ve expected to receive.
Audience While my audience fluctuated from time to time, after Erica’s advice I knew I needed to create a concrete audience to fully understand what I wanted in the app. I knew I wanted to work with children who are younger and may not be able to read or write yet. While the app is created and curated to children in hospitals, if I had unlimited amounts of time I would expand its audience for all children to use.
5-8 Year Old Children Separated from society Want to create in a new way
Branding Color
#21D8D8
#30E586
#FF74EB
#F7B986
Mascot - Bud
Typography header 1
Filson Soft Bold
header 2
Filson Soft Regular
body 1
Filson Soft Light - app use only
body 2
Miller Text Roman - print use only
For the brand, I wanted to keep it simple, with fun but “gender neutral” colors that grabbed children’s attention. For type, Filson Soft is light, easy to read, and bubbly enough without being overly quirky. I looked at numerous kids products and apps to see what illustration styles, colors, and icons caught my eye the most. I felt it was really important to create a mascot to really complete the brand identity, Bud is a personable character that a child could have created out of simple shapes like they do in the app.
First Draft
In my early wireframing, I made the mistake of not doing much of them! I jumped directly into sketch files without thinking of how I wanted the app screens to be organized out of fear of running out of time. That was my first mistake, once I realized that wasn’t going to work, I started over (partially). In class we discussed that asking a child to draw whatever they feel like with no prompt can be very daunting. So, from my goofy attempt at developing an illustration style and creating cut out dogs and other animals became my ultimate solution. Giving kids randomized shapes to work with that they can add, multiply, and erase gives them more creative freedom without the annoyance of creative block.
So, from my goofy attempt at developing an illustration style and creating cut out dogs and other animals became my ultimate solution. Giving kids randomized shapes to work with that they can add, multiply, and erase gives them more creative freedom without the annoyance of creative block.
Thanks to the creative thinking of Fish, he offered to do a physical prototyping of Doodle Buds with his son Rye. The results were awesome, and I enjoyed seeing what he came up with and where he decided to put his creations and why.
FISH: What was most fun making these characters? RYE: I liked when we made the cat face because it was Halloween and the person dressed up as a cat, yours dressed up as a sad snowman and that was funny. FISH: How to decide where to put them? RYE: I wanted the penguin in the chair because that would be fun on Halloween. The dog was playing hide and seek games for Halloween. My brother Juni was the yellow dog, I was the cat, mommy was the sad snowman. I put mommy and me in the kitchen with mommy because I was helping her cleaning up the kitchen from the Halloween fun. Mommy was sad because Juni and Yves messed up the kitchen.
In Conclusion I’m so grateful for the knowledge I have gained in Degree Project, and I hope to continue this project further in my career.