Politics and childhood, are they a match?
Using design sprint and e-learning to spark civic interest in kids
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It’s well known that political concepts aren’t presented in an accessible way for many citizens. Sometimes, the terminology surrounding this topic can be overwhelming, causing people to disconnect and lose interest, but what if we could tackle this issue at its core to increase curiosity and inclination towards politics from a young age?
Do you remember ever hearing adults talk about politics when you were a child, without really understanding what they were talking about? Or perhaps now you find yourself in the position of an adult, feeling the responsibility to teach children about political concepts, but not knowing where to start?
As politics remain a fundamental pillar of society, it continues to be a particularly inaccessible topic for children, as they often don’t see it as relevant to their lives, and introducing complex concepts to them can be challenging. To change this, we need to use creative and effective ways to engage them from an early age.
But here lies a problem: most children don’t understand or show interest in politics. Even when they do, they are often dismissed by their parents or family, either because they don’t know how to explain certain concepts or because they disagree with children having political opinions, even though understanding politics is fundamental to their development as individuals.
From this challenge arose the Civify project, an educational and informative digital application and social network aimed at opening the doors of politics to a new generation of informed, engaged, and participative citizens.
Kick-off 💥
It all began with the challenge presented to the team in the briefing:
To create disruptive ideas that promote government transparency and citizen participation, using Jake Knapp’s design sprint methodology.
So, for 5 days, we focused on developing this project following the steps outlined by the author.
Day One — Asking Questions 🤔
After reading the briefing, we began to brainstorm possible solutions in the form of questions (sprint questions) which we then transformed into How Might We…? statements, more focused on the solution. We decided to cluster these questions into groups based on their themes.
In addition to this, we created user personas and user journeys for our potential users to better understand who we wanted to target with our solution.
After voting on all possible solutions using the dot voting technique, we decided to focus on this question:
How might we digitally engage children in politics and participative democracy?
From here, the team was divided into two groups, each focused on a different question, and I continued with the next steps of the design sprint alongside two of my teammates.
Day Two — Research and Ideation 🔍
Once we had a clear starting point, we delved into idea research. For this, the three of us created a wall of proposals called lightning demos or quick demos.
Our goal is focused on childhood, so we decided to research news and projects related to digital education, video games, and other processes that have been carried out in which the objective was to give a voice and educate in politics to the segment of the population that doesn’t have the right to vote: children.
We entered the part of our design sprint where each team member must put their ideas into writing.
First, every twenty minutes, we individually wrote down our ideas, unpolished, as in a brainstorming session. This helps us let go without feeling pressured or observed since these ideas aren’t shared with the team and serve as our personal notepad.
After this, we started with the Crazy 8 technique. Each of us folded an A4 sheet of paper three times to obtain eight squares, in which, for eight minutes (one minute per square), we had to create eight quick sketches, without worrying about neatness.
Personally, this last one has been a technique that has helped me efficiently find several ideas for the solution I had in mind.
Now, each of us must gather the ideas we consider most interesting and build a low-fidelity prototype.
Day Three — Create and Choose the Final Solution 🥁
It’s time to collect the final ideas from each member. We create an “art museum” to display our low-fidelity prototypes, explain them to the rest of the team, and then silently vote to show which parts of each one we find most interesting.
My idea was chosen as the favorite (Yay! 🎉), so after explaining my wireframes in detail to my teammates so each can develop their own project based on them, my individual design process begins.
Day Four — Going Solo | Design and Prototyping 👩🏻💻
This day marks the beginning of Civify taking shape.
My goal: to grow children’s interest and knowledge about politics through a digital platform. 🎯
Although it’s possible to continue working with the low fidelity wireframes in this methodology, I iterated them in Figma to a higher fidelity while keeping a monochrome look. This approach was taken due to the quick pace of the design sprint, to avoid getting slown down in visual design details and better optimize my time.
With this first version of the UI, I conducted user testing for this project. However, once the 5-day sprint concluded, I iterated the screens to include a solid corporate identity, giving them personality and color, something very necessary for an application designed for children.
Application Mascot: Civit 🤖
The face of the application will be a mascot acting as an interactive guide called Civit. A robot designed to guide and accompany users throughout their educational experience in Civify.
This virtual companion will help understand complex political concepts in an accessible and fun way, and through its chat section, users can chat with it and get their doubts resolved.
Visual Identity 🎨
I chose blue as the main color for the application. It works very well visually when complemented with Civit, as the goal is to draw attention to him whenever he appears on screen. It’s also appealing and easy on the eyes, which helps maintain user focus and comfort during a prolonged use of the app.
For typography, I selected Inter for its readability and wide range of weights, as it will be used for all text in the application. The Baloo font was used for the Civify logo design.
All 3D illustrations in the app are from Icons8.
The App
We open the app, and once we log in with our account, via third parties, or register by creating a personal profile with our details, we find the main screen and a bottom navigation bar with the following sections.
1. Home Screen: Learning Section 📚
Civit welcomes us, accompanied by a series of cards arranged in a horizontal scroll just below, this will be “the democratic route” to follow. Each card addresses a different theme and serves as access to a challenge.
The goal of these challenges is to answer questions posed by Civit. It presents a question and offers a series of predefined answers, from which we must select the one we consider correct. After each answer, we receive a brief definition or explanation, regardless of whether our answer was correct or incorrect.
The number of correct answers determines our total score in each challenge. These scores allow us to earn points, climb the leaderboard and win rewards as we level up.
The explanations for each answer, along with the points earned for completing challenges, strengthen the user’s learning and help them understand unfamiliar political concepts or those whose meaning they didn’t know.
2. Leaderboard and Earned Rewards 🏅
In this menu, we can view the leaderboard of participants in the democratic route challenges. We see a list of the users with the highest scores, highlighting the top three on the podium and the others below.
By clicking on our avatar, we can access our profile and see our rewards, which are earned in the form of badges, as well as review the archive of completed challenges and the scores obtained in each.
In this section you can also personalize the app experience: view and edit profile information, manage notifications, and more.
3. Integrated Social Network 📱
We access Civify’s integrated social network: Civiflow. It’s a scrolling social network, similar to TikTok or Instagram Reels. I designed it in this format because it’s very easy to use and intuitive, and most children are familiar with it.
But what do Pedro Sánchez or Irene Montero have to do with all this?
Well, it’s simple: in this social network, the content focuses exclusively on politics and is specifically designed for children. We can watch short videos of various politicians and institutions, all moderated to ensure that only age-appropriate messages are shown and to avoid biases. It is a social network where comments on videos are also not allowed, in order to prevent toxic behavior.
The goal is for children to see political figures addressing them directly, using understandable language, so they understand that, even though they are not yet old enough to vote, governmental decisions also affect them.
In addition to watching the videos, we can mark as favorites those that interest us and access an archive where we can check them when we want.
4. Current news and opinions ✉️
Here users have the opportunity to stay informed and share their opinions on current topics that directly impact their lives. By accessing cards presenting various current issues, they receive a brief overview of the topic accompanied by an explanatory video for a more comprehensive understanding, all written in a way that can be understood by children.
To express their opinion, they can do so through a simple voting system with options of “Like” and “Dislike”.
5. Chat with Civit 💬
We find this section in the last of the navigation menus, with a chat bubble icon. Here, users have the opportunity to interact directly and personally with Civit. It’s designed to answer questions, provide guidance, and offer support to users, whether to resolve doubts about the application’s functioning or to obtain more information about political topics.
Day Five — Validation and Testing with Users 📝
The time has come to test Civify. Ideally, I would have liked to conduct tests with potential users, in this case, children. However, this wasn’t possible, so I organized interviews with five people whose work is related to childhood education, who are in contact with minors in their work environment, or who are parents.
I conducted two interviews via Zoom and three in person. During these sessions, I presented the application and its main features, contextualized the process, and allowed them to interact with the prototype.
Once the interviews were completed, I compiled the most important questions to determine Civify’s potential and gathered them into a table.
I highlighted in green the positive responses, indicating that the application was mostly well-received. Users found it useful and intuitive, appreciated the incorporation of a mascot like Civit to guide and answer questions, and would recommend the application to others. Additionally, they expressed support for the idea of using it in schools.
However, they showed some reluctance when asked if they would pay to use the application. Most believe it should be free for users, and some suggested adding more features. These are some of the most repeated responses during my interviews:
“It seems useful and interesting for children to learn about political concepts.”
“I think it would be a good tool to use in schools.”
“I would let a child use it as long as there’s parental control.”
In summary, the outlook is promising, and we could begin working on Civify’s development 🙌🏻
Future Possibilities 🔮
Looking ahead to Civify’s future, there are several aspects I would like to explore and develop to further improve the user experience:
- Conduct testing with children, the end users of the project, to ensure that the application meets their needs and expectations effectively.
- Explore the possibility of integrating a user forum within the application, providing a space for users to connect, create a community, share ideas, and discuss relevant topics in a safe and moderated manner.
- Consider other forms of reward that can be used outside the application, such as discount codes or event tickets, to further incentivize user participation and engagement.
- Research and develop a specific interface for tablets or web browsers, with the aim of facilitating the use of Civify in educational environments such as schools where mobile phones are not allowed, thereby expanding its reach and utility.
What Have I Learned During This Process?
This was my first design sprint, so I admit I felt a bit overwhelmed when starting it 🙃 as the topic seemed too broad. But I found that with the right methodology and collaboration, complex problems can be addressed, and specific solutions that are effective can be found.
The design sprint methodology and its speed (as the name suggests) prevented me from getting slown down in some parts of the process where I could spend weeks iterating, but I’ve seen that sometimes it’s necessary not to get ahead in aspects like design and aesthetics before checking whether a project would be favorable or not.
Also, thanks to the research process and user testing, I reaffirmed my belief in the power of technology and gamification to promote learning in both childhood and adulthood.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you very much for taking some time to read me.
See you! 👽
