Why AR/MR for Education?
Introduction: Best AR Learning Apps & AR Toys
Research and Literature shows that AR increases kids and adults engagement at multiple levels, allowing active learning, participation and gamification. Learning basics, building skills and applying principles.
Bye-bye 2020…
A busy challenging year, filled with obstacles and opportunities. While walking the path of a start-up founder at Hoppipop! KidsZone, I could dive deeper into market and audience research to develop a design strategy for my business project in the educational space. Creating engaging Kids digital books and application has always been my main goal, but as a UX professional, there are many aspects to take into consideration, which go beyond the user journey or colourful UIs.
In fact, if the edutainment space is continuously changing, with more sophisticated or addictive games, apps or social media communities, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought some significant changes to how kids behave, learn and think. Similarly, parents and educators have grown their anxieties and concerns about online safety, too much screen-time, too low real-life social interaction and healthy fun Play Time!
The following research findings have highlighted the key-issues in the Kids Educational space, the relevant trends in the technology sector, like the growth of 5G, and the growing demand of platforms like Roblox, that saw his users numbers to rocket during the lock-down weeks.
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But how should we read those statistics and what can designers, educators and content creators use those information to develop meaningful and valuable products for kids and adults alike?
I hope the following sections will inspire your creativity and strategic thinking.
Welcome 2021!
The Best Learning Kids Apps in 2020
The best kids-apps are NOT necessarily the best-selling apps…
Parents.com tapped tech and education experts for their picks in the crowded kids’ app space, then gave a panel of junior testers permission to play. While players and experts enjoyed more specific apps, the market data research confirmed that only some among the best apps also appeared in the top-grossing apps charts. Which are the reasons behind the sales failures? Researching each product and its target audience will help in finding the specific reasons behind its low sales. However, the most common reasons for poor commercial success are: low marketing and social media exposure, limited distribution, price, devices compatibility, quality but boring content, not rewarding game-play, a visual style that doesn’t meet the audience expectations or doesn’t reflect the content. What can we do to reduce this gap? Is Augmented reality (AR) the solution? Certainly not. A product needs to work in all its key-areas. AR is a powerful feature that can be used to deliver fun learning activities but, without a defined purpose, any AR feature will result boring and useless.
AR always requires a certain degree of extra effort from the user. Make sure that the user’s effort is worth and rewarded! AR is not only a 2d/3d object popping-up from the screen, but is about the player’s actions, reactions and interactions with the 2d/3d object. For this reason, AR has the power of revolutionizing traditional learning by introducing new ways to comprehend information. Students can scan different parts of a textbook and receive video and audio tips to make complex concepts easier to understand. Benefits of AR apps include:
> Encouraging students to take the initiative to learn.
> Better student engagement by adding a practical element to learning.
> Learning anywhere, anytime.
> Students can move around and interact with virtual features for better learning.
Great learning apps are almost as hard to find as disinfectant wipes — but they do exist. Karen Cicero, Parents.com (2020)
Case Studies: AR Books, AR Toys and Roblox
It all started with Harry Potter…
Is Augmented Reality is what can actually make your kid interested in reading? Who can resist the book that brings to life unicorns and hippogryphs? And I am speaking about the book called Wonderbook «Book of Spells» for PlayStation 3. Kids who start reading it become wizards from School of Hogwarts for several hours. Similar examples are appearing more often in the app-stores: have you ever seen a dragon coming to life out of a real book?
The AR Toys panorama also is becoming more populated, starting with ‘Mario Kart Live’ that tops ‘Pokémon Go’ for AR experiences and makes your home a totally dazzling playground. What are the next gen trends on toys matter? And how do they impact the production of AR enhanced toys and apps? Is it only about fancy feature or there is more behind AR? Looking at toys trends in 2020, we can clearly understand that kids are much more aware than we generally think, and not only because of celebrities like Greta Thunberg, but because they have developed a different perception of global issues.
Toys for Future are toys that convey environmental awareness in a playful and child-appropriate manner or are made from environmentally friendly materials.
Be You! includes all toys that support, encourage and assist people in particular life situations: more and more toys will be expected to include AR/MR features.
Today, kids are actively demanding for more intelligent toys and deeper content. Digital and physical are not such a big differentiator for curious kids. Where parents and educators need to look into is their role in helping kids to develop healthy socio-emotional skills. In this space, Roblox has grown its presence, by giving a place for kids where “to grow their imagination”. In a very short time, Roblox has engaged the majority of all 9-to-12-year-old children in the United States only, reaching, if not topping, Steam’s active accounts.
As Watson explained in her article: What Can Children Teach Us About UX Design? (2014), both children and adults have little patience with products that are too complex or difficult to navigate or that don’t work as expected.
In the future years, not only the use of internet and devices will be more accessible to the global population, but also innovative technologies such as AR/ MR/VR and 360°, will be seen as a given media and expected to fulfil the users needs.
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