Energy Gadget Interface 1

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1318045721

Project Version 7

This version was just finalising the appearance of the energy monitor screen - on selection the icon changes to the power consumption, in terms of a 'kids' currency', here, ice creams. From informal research with kids, I found that most kids don't know the actual value of money, so I chose to put it into terms they would understand by associating the value of electricity with the value of familiar objects you can buy.

Project Version 6

In this version, I made the animation for the challenge sequence - the user connects via infrared to another gadget and chooses the weapon (out of their tokens) to fight with before circling the other player's icon.

Project Version 5

Here, I added some extra slides such as the add device slide, and worked on the highlighted icons on the settings page.

Project Version 4

I figured that the kids would want to arrange the furniture in their bedroom to match their real bedroom as I know from experience and investigation, into whether a child would respond better to a standardised or customised set up, that kids love customisation - hence I made an animation of a possible set up of the room as an example. Below are screenshots of the animation. I also set up the basics of the other slides ready for making buttons.

Project Version 3

Now I have the first and second frames starting to take shape. The first slide is the bedroom set up which will be customisable by the kids. The second slide is about the appliances set up and the energy they are using - this needs quite a bit of work.

Project Version 2

Further experimented with the tree aesthetic here, having a tree root light up (like electricity) on selection of an icon. Still think it doesn't fit with my ideal look of the interface though. I also cut down the number of icons from 5 to 4 because I'm going to incorporate the help menu within each page on a top toolbar. Have got all the popup white tabs with coordinating highlights working.

Project Version 1

Just starting out with my project, and I was drafting a tree-type main menu. This wasn't so much a developed idea as a starting point for playing with flash. I got the icons to look the way I wanted, and made them highlight on selection, but wasn't satisfied with the tree aesthetic - I wanted it to look a little more block-y and kid-like.

Research/Inspiration Project 2 - Gadget

First of all I'm looking at websites to see if there's anything out there that's already encouraging kids to save energy. There's not. I found a few websites that look 'pretty', but as soon as you click on something it takes you to a page with screeds of text that made me, let alone kids, want to back out of the browser, or just an error page, where this need to make kids energywise has really fallen through.

http://energyquest.ca.gov/index.html is one such website. It has this really cool homepage, but it doesn't go anywhere - just to pages with heaps of text - kids would be lost on the site. It's not intuitive enough to make kids want to explore and be inspired to conserve energy. It needs to be portrayed as a game, not a chore - kids hate chores. :) The games on this page aren't even energy conservation related - I played them...

Another website is http://www1.eere.energy.gov/kids/roofus/ - I think I found it as a link off the first one. It again just goes to a little lecture about energy, not particularly conducive to making kids want to be energy smart.

So basically there's very little on the internet that's interactive enough to inspire little Einsteins to want to go change the world, leaving a gap for a kids' website that I could design to encourage this. Children's social networking sites like Club Penguin (http://www.clubpenguin.com/) and Moshi Monsters (http://www.moshimonsters.com/) are both very popular with the 7-12 age group and have potential to give rise to a social networking site that is based around a competitive energy saving environment.

Or, perhaps a physical device might work better as it's more tangible. One toy that came to mind to do with this project was the Tamagotchi device:

Kids LOVE these and the idea behind them is nurturing a virtual pet - what would happen if we nurtured the pet but instead of feeding the pet food, we feed it with good energy use? This idea was also inspired by the virtual plant image that I posted a few weeks ago - that the plant grows when the energy is used wisely. It might not be an accurate method of measuring the energy but it's a very child friendly one.

Also, something else that came to mind when I was thinking about Tamagotchis was an old craze of 'Scannerz':

hese were gadgets which you could scan everyday barcodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code) with and fight rival tribes monsters if you happened upon a barcode containing that particular monster. They also had a function to fight against each other, similar to Tamagotchis - in this way you had a live interaction going on which encouraged kids to get competitive and stay interested in the product. Retaining attention is very important in a product for kids, as they typically have such short attention spans. I was thinking about potentially applying this to an energy scenario where you can scan something like an energy star rating:

and play against friends - better energy conservation is the object of the games.

Statement of Intent Project 2

Having had a week away sick, I'm now playing catch up with the first part of the project; conceptualising a product and its interface, with the focus on energy conservation. As I've had a wealth of experience with kids, practically raising my sister, I know what makes kids tick about a certain object or toy - particular features will make them really attached to something, or really averse to another thing - but I also know that they are terrible at energy conservation! They tend to leave commonly used appliances, such as TVs, stereos, computers and LIGHTS on all the time, even when they're not in the same room, let alone using them. So, as I can see a niche market for a product like this that parents would buy for their kids because a) it's affordable, b) it will save them money in the long run because their kids will be encouraged not to run up huge power bills, and c) their kids WANT the product - like a toy that catches on as a craze, that every kid wants and begs their parents to buy for them. I can see I'll have my work cut out with this :)

Global Warming - Energy use and its consequences