Everstory

Project Overview

In this project, I partnered with a fantastic early Childhood education specialist, Garret Potter, to develop a revolutionary audio/visual encyclopedia for early learners as the primary UX Researcher and Designer. I developed the initial interactive mockup and led the subsequent contextual inquiry and usability test with 11 primary school librarians and 12 children (aged 4-6).
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*This product is still in development. We planned to pitch the product to Wikipedia or other education platforms by the end of the 2023.

Timeline

January, 2023 - present

My Role

Primary UX Researcher and Designer

What is Everstory?

Imagine you are in a casual conversation, and someone mentions Dilophosaurus. What would you do to know more about it?

“Google it” is probably what you are thinking right now. And if you are more inquisitive, maybe read it on Wikipedia for something extra.

But what if You were 5 years old and got the same question. What would you do? ‍What about times when the subjects of their curiosity are not within reach, or there is no one available to ask?

Everstory is created for this reason. We hope this product will be:

"Effective non-text-dependent resources for facilitating connected, interest-guided, encyclopedic learning do not yet exist for early learners."

Wouldn't there be something children can use?

The answer to that is both Yes and No.
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Going through some of the standard inquiry tools the preschool may use, we find while there is a decent amount of product, nearly all of them require developed or significant literacy for the kids to use. We decided to optimize our product to focus on reducing the literacy requirement that focuses primarily on audio and visual communication.
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A textless way to explore the world!

We first conceptualized our design in a web platform. Focused on delivering a textless exploring learning experience that lets students learn by trailing their curiosity.

Students can explore what their curiosity leads to them and learn from listening to the content in their language, free from just the text. They can also explore related media and learn from the world around them.

They can also explore beyond just one. A curated related items list can continue their curiosity to more and more!

Our WIP XD prototype

Do people like it?

“You are the expert, so we came to learn from you.”

As an educational tool that will be used in both school and family settings, it is crucial for the product to be tested with both students and educators. Their feedback will make or break the product.

We recruited 11 primary school librarians from the southeast Michigan area and 12 children (aged 4-6) and specifically went to the environment where they will use Everstory, aiming to understand their needs contextually. The process is a hybrid of Contextual Inquiry and Usability test. After some initial questionary, we will ask them to try our wireframe.

For School Librarians, we aim to answer:

How much technology are they already using?
What are their student curious about?
What do librarians currently use to fulfill students’ curiosity?
What are the librarians still looking for in their tools?

For the kids, we asked them:

What is your biggest curiosity?
How do you get it answer?
How would you want to interact with the app?

* We are still in the process of data analysis