Why children’s design is a promising space for top talent

Interview with Bo Stjerne Thomsen, VP and Chair of LEGO Foundation (Part II)

This article is divided into two parts. Part I expounded upon what “good” children’s design entails and how the LEGO Foundation approaches design on a practical level. In Part II below, we turn our focus on attracting more “top people” to the field.

Bo Stjerne Thomsen

Now that we have discussed what “good” children’s design entails, it feels necessary to talk about the future of this field. I believe that these two issues cannot be separated, considering that it is these professionals who are creating the “good” product. Yet in speaking with many high-level designers, I have noticed that many share the belief that being fully associated with the children’s space only is too risky for their career prospects — and that they must moreover prove themselves outside of the children’s sector in order to stay relevant in the eyes of the general design community.

In fact, many professionals say that while they are potentially interested in joining the children’s industry, they cannot even allow themselves to consider doing so because of the severe lack of near-term career prospects (as one colleague wryly remarked, “it just doesn’t put bread on the table”).

It is clear that the children’s sector must be rebranded and presented as the relevant and impactful discipline that it is — rich with positive impact, creative opportunities, and potential profits: a win-win-win for designers, children, and society at large. In today’s economic climate, replete with an overwhelming number of layoffs and unprecedented wealth of talented people reconsidering their professional path, it is especially prudent to understand this industry’s promising financial future.

The children’s sector is an industry on the cusp of explosive growth. Potential talents would benefit from understanding that there are currently unparalleled opportunities to join and advance in this exciting and ever-growing field. While statistically speaking the discipline may be marginal, children are an integral part of society and themselves active users of many products designed for adults, as well. As such, they have a huge influence on the total market.

Here, in Part II of our interview, LEGO Foundation’s Bo Stjerne Thomsen sheds light on the complexity and richness of children’s design as a growing field — especially relevant when considering increasing technological opportunities, AI, and children’s growing presence in the digital environment.

Polina: What is your forecast for good children’s technology? What are some opportunities that you can identify within the sector?

Bo: I absolutely think that there is an enormous and still-growing area of opportunity. Not only because children’s technologies and EdTech and so on are a growing business sector, but also because technologies are intersecting all disciplines of education, business, culture, and other aspects of our lives — and this increasing intersection is particularly relevant to the lives of children.

So, for example, here are some areas of career opportunities:

• Product management — relevant for individuals who wish to focus on defining design strategy and communicating with multiple disciplines and teams. There are many levels of opportunities for different types of professionals and they each require various kinds of technological, personal, social, and interdisciplinary abilities. Above all, we need the sort of minds that can drive ambition for what “good” looks like in the home environment and beyond.
• Experience design — meant for individuals able to clearly use the good design principles referenced above, as well as implement these principles among children. A good experience designer knows how to use technology to create a particular kind of value or outcome. This role requires a more macro outlook and understanding of how to best implement and use these technologies to create value at different levels. Experience design is a growing field that makes use of technologies that help, whether in health care, education, or other places.
• Community management — this is another huge area of opportunity. Businesses in this sector need to be more mindful about how to invite both the parent community and educator community to best understand the qualities of these technologies. Technology is like play. You cannot just talk about it. You need to experience it. It is important to know about the technology — to test it and try it out — but the technology itself is not the crux of the solution. We need to invite all sorts of people involved in children’s lives — from parents, to teachers, to designers, to children themselves — and give them the opportunity to play with these technologies so that we can best design the solutions that deliver the particular value we intend to provide.
• Educational development — this is an enormous area of opportunity right now. We don’t have sufficient competence and capacity to guide activities, set up environments, design activities, or design new measurements. It is such incredibly hard work to design really good experiences where you are not only trying to capture children’s understanding and engagement, but are really focused on finding good ways to have quality data and feedback throughout the process.
• Sector leadership — meant for those individuals who can help bring together the multiple sectors involved and get them to speak the same language while at the same time advocating for children. This is our main ambition right now, because there are no real guidelines, whether you are speaking about the corporate business sector, or even about well-being policymakers. We need to find ways for it not to be too restrictive while also appealing to children and taking their safety and well-being into consideration. So this is an extremely exciting area.

This last point, and really all the points mentioned above, are fundamentally based on curiosity, complex problem-solving, and collaboration. And of course, there are also many additional disciplines in this area and place for talented, ambitious people interested in making an impact.

Polina: It’s wonderful how you opened up the opportunities. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the business angle of children’s industries. From your perspective, would there be enough funding to bolster the potential economic growth we are talking about?

Bo: It’s always tricky to assess the growth in business and investments, in particular in areas of children and education, which often are unprioritized areas in times of conflicts and other crises. However, there are a lot of things that make us positive.

• First of all, models for return on investments in education, including early childhood, are becoming more mature. For instance, 1 USD of investment in young children provides a return of between 7–11 USD, depending on the context (see “Add today multiply tomorrow” | UNICEF), and there is a concerted effort to advocate for increased education financing as part of the global UN dialogues (see “Financing Education” | United Nations).
• Secondly, the education sector is still driven by optimism in new EdTech opportunities, which is a sector projected to grow annually at about 15–20% per year over the next decade. However, this requires that knowledge about children’s development and learning be applied in the context of technology, AI etc.
• Thirdly, key growth in education is likely to occur with projected changes in learning outcomes and skills landscape. For instance, growth in solutions that address social and emotional learning is likely to grow at about 25% a year. There is also an expanded focus on creativity being a top priority on government agendas worldwide, which will drive demand for play-based and more creative experiences for children (see “Creative Thinking — PISA” | OECD). And finally, the World Economic Forum recently reported that a shift from traditional content-knowledge to skills such as problem-solving can lead to a global growth in GDP at about 2.54 Trillion USD (see “Catalysing Education 4.0: Investing in the Future of Learning for a Human-Centric Recovery” | World Economic Forum).

In this case, I don’t think it’s a matter of whether or not we will see growth in these areas, but rather the degree to which one is able to adjust and grow competencies in the specific areas of children’s development that are most needed in the sector. All of the above areas will require major shifts in terms of how we design for children’s development and learning in new contexts, for new competencies and with increasingly blended forms of experiences.

Polina: It’s nice to hear your optimism. You have offered me a lot of inspiration (and hopefully to others, as well)! The main element that I have personally taken from this interview is embracing a positive perspective regarding the future of children’s design, especially when considering the sector from its untapped business potential. I hope that your words will help attract talented people who are interested in joining the field but are perhaps hesitant to do so due to current paradigms relating to the sector, as well as reassure those currently involved in the space.