Storybug: the best books for the one you love the most
How Design Thinking can help parents be their best
Parenting is probably one of the most difficult things there are. Kids do not come with instructions and even if everybody seems to know what to do, they also seem to fail a lot when doing it.
There’s one thing there’s no doubt about: parents want to do and offer what’s best for their kids. But… what is the best for them? It’s always a multifactorial issue: it depends on parents’ criteria, children’s stage of life, their interests and needs, etc.
Parents usually worry about many different things related to their children’s lives, but health and education are probably the two that make them worry the most. Regarding education, reading books is one of the most relevant activities: it helps improve language skills, develop empathy, inspire creativity, and experience something different from one’s own life.
Through some desk research, some astonishing data was found. In Spain every year approximately 8000 new children’s books are edited. In addition, children’s stage and interests change radically from 0 to 6 years old. At the same time, a lot of them read (75%) and they do it for quite a lot of time each week. And above all, parents have little time availability, meaning not enough time to dive deep into all new books to find the most appropriate at each moment.
Bearing all this in mind, the question was:
How do parents give access to books that their children most need or want at all times?
The goals were:
- understanding in depth parents’ needs when dealing with finding, choosing and purchasing literature for their children
- ideating a solution based on these needs.
Taking this into account, the methodology chosen to develop the project was Design Thinking, and its double diamond approach.
EXPLORING THE PROBLEM
Research questions were the first step to help build a research plan, and decide the roadmap to follow. The main areas that wanted to be explored were users and the product itself.
Interviews were conducted to 4 parents and 2 people with children in their lives, that helped empathize with users and understand their purchasing process. In addition, a publisher specialized in books for children and a children literature expert were interviewed to gain a better understanding of children books.
After having completed the interviews, and taking into account all the information recovered from them, a survey was conducted in which 227 people took part.
Then, the main findings from the research were organized into three categories:
1. USERS: parents, grand-parents and other people with children in their lives.
A. Does time availability change when children arrive to parents lives?
The main hypothesis, in which everything was based on, was that parents have little time availability. It was found that an 83% of parents believe their free time is less than before becoming parents.
To illustrate this, one of the interviewees said:
B. How important is that children read?
In order not to condition the response, this was asked in conjunction with other areas of children’s lives (such as sports or music) and 86% of survey respondents considered reading to be either important or very important.
C. Whose opinion is most important when purchasing products?
It was important to understand how the process of making decisions when purchasing products for children is. It was discovered that 60% of people make decisions based not only on their criteria and taste, but also taking into account the child’s opinions.
D. Do users find in books an appropriate help during children’s milestones?
As children from 0 to 6 years old change stage of life constantly and they go through many important milestones, we wanted to know if books were used in these situations. It was found that 91% of people who have children around them decide to use books to help children go through life milestones (such as starting school, stop using diapers or having a new brother or sister).
2. EXPERIENCE OF PURCHASING
A. How do users do the discovery of books?
People were asked how they found or who they trusted to recommend books and the results were that: 26% of people obtain information through the Internet (Google or Social networks), 26% trust people they know and 32% go to specialized bookstores (seeking for professional advice).
B. What are the most important things when choosing the book?
When choosing a book, people consider that the most important factors are the story’s topic, that it has a positive message and whether it’s aligned with their own values. Surprisingly, the information they can’t find when choosing books is the same: values, if it’s appropriate for the age range. And also, topic, type of writing (capital or linked letters) and text-drawing proportion.
C. Where do people buy books and why do they choose this places?
People mostly buy books in stores (84%) and the main reasons are because of proximity, variety, convinience, but also because they find professional advice and they can see the product. The remaining 16%, who decide to buy online, do it mainly because its convenient and quick.
3. PRODUCT
A. How are books categorized?
There are standardized categories for books (such as ONIX or THEMA), but none are specific for children’s books. The main categories are: age, topic and format (illustrated album, board book, pop-up book, etc.)
Both the publisher and the children’s book expert agreed that the process of including books into categories is subjective and completely based on experience.
“It’s the publisher who decides how to classify the book according to their knowledge and expertise” — Rafael (Publisher in Corimbo)
B. Is age related to evolutive development of children?
Age doesn’t represent the evolutive development of a child, but books are only and mainly classified according to this criteria.
C. What’s the supply and demand of books in Spain?
As it was previously mentioned, each year 8000 new children’s books are published. In addition, the number of people buying books has significantly increased over the past 10 years, which is interpreted as a business opportunity.
DECIDING WHAT TO FIX
The amount of information recovered during the research phase was immense. So the next challenge was to synthesize it. The result were 2 user personas:
Considering that parents were from the beginning the main focus of this project, it was decided to focus on Monica, mother of 2, as a user persona. Afterwards and having Monica in mind, 2 user journeys were made to understand the main pain points found along the way.
USER INSIGHTS — conclusions from research
- Parents consider reading is very important but have little time availability to look for books.
- Information about books is not clear or accurate. That’s why parents usually go to stores where they can see, touch and analyze the content of books to make a decision. Also, because there they can find book expert advice.
- There are experts in children’s books (in children bookstores) or experts in children (parents, psychologists or teachers).
IDEATING POTENCIAL SOLUTIONS
During the first phases of the Design Thinking process, being a team of one means working harder. That’s it. However, coming up with new ideas is a really challenging task.
The approach taken was to use SCAMPER method to come up with many questions and statements. And it was combined with Brainwriting method by writing down as many ideas as possible. Then, ideas were submitted to a priorization matrix, taking into account the impact these ideas would have and the desirability they would have for users.
The resulting idea was a mixture of different proposals:
A children’s books personalized recommendation service
SOLUTION
Before defining the idea, there were some issues to solve:
- is there anything similar already in the market?
- what could our added value be?
Getting to know the current business scene in the book sector for Spain and internationally, would help us understand which was the starting point of the project and if there was room for improvement. A benchmark analysis of direct competitors was conducted.
Our added value would be that the book selection is personalized (and not the same book for all), based on the information provided about the child.
The next step was to better define the idea and decide its functionalities. To do so, How Might We (HMW) technique was used, combined with MoSCoW to prioritize what to build in this first approach.
Afterwards, being the solution a service, a blueprint was used to illustrate step by step how the journey would be when using our book recommendation service.
Understand the service by reading a blueprint might be challenging. That’s why a video was created explaining the whole service.
There are 2 key areas to develop in order to provide the type of service that has been designed: the classification of books and the flow to create a new profile. Because of time limitations and scope of this project, only the second flow was explored more in depth.
The first thing considered was the type of device it would be designed for. It was decided to build a mobile-first web. The reason is that it is believed that parents probably use their phones to surf the Internet more than computers because it is a faster way to do so (and they have less time availability). On the other hand, building an app was discarded because it is believed that downloading it might be an obstacle in the beginning.
Also, the following was taken into account:
- age doesn’t always coincide with child’s development
- importance of a humanized language that conveys closeness and trust
- give importance to what parents consider essential: their kid’s opinion, their values and specific events in their kid’s life (arrival of a brother, starting school, etc.).
STEP 1: Start creating a new profile
The first step is to introduce child’s name. This desicion was made because the process of creating the profile should be something parents perceive as centered in their child from the first moment.
The danger of doing this is that parents may perceive they are giving away too much information about their kids and perceive a safety problem. This is yet to be confirmed through testing.
STEP 2: Developmental stage
The idea is to use different criteria to understand the developmental stage of the child and be able to match it with an appropriate book. For example, their level of language production could be used to identify the stage they are in.
The next step changes acoording to the production os language. If it is:
- low (few simple words), it is understood that the kid is younger and we ask about other milestones that occur around this age (use of diaper, eating with no help, or pointing at objects or people)
- high (two or more words combined), it is understood that the child is a bit older and we ask if they identify letter, they have started to read with help or they read with no help.
Of course, to be fully and accurately developed this step would need expert advice.
STEP 3: Topics
This step was designed taking into account the results of the survey: 74% of respondents indicated that topic was one of the main reasons to choose a book.
STEP 4: Values
Also, 42% of survey repondents consider important values conveyed by books. Consequently, the next step helps parents choose which are the most important values for them.
STEP 5: Ideal order
Parents define how the ideal order is at the moment of purchasing. Given that 91% of people use books to help children during milestones, at this step they can indicate which they need to learn from, such as the arrival of a brother or sister, going to sleep, sickness, fears and others. Plus, they can show their type of book preferences (cardboard, pop-up, with textures, etc.)
Certainly, all this information will change as time goes by. So all this information would be editable. After creating the profile, the flow would continue to the checkout as explained in the video.
Logo, typography and color
This children’s book personalized recommendation service was called Storybug. The name suggests that whoever uses it will be “stung” by the bug of curiosity to continue discovering stories.
The 2 typographies chosen are rounded and were chosen because they convey kindness and confidence, something essential being children the end users. epending on the function they would have:
- Oduda Bold was used in the logo.
- Nunito Black, Bold and Medium was used in the interface because its readability is adecuate. The different font weights are used to give hierarchy to the design.
A shade of blue was picked as the main color because it communicates serenity, security and intelligence, all of them concepts related to literature or childhood.
Business model
The business model resembles Lookiero, a startup specialized in fashion that also provides a personalized recommendation service.
In Spain, subscription services during 2021 will have a 28% increase in revenue over 2020. That’s why this type of model is considered. Also, to give users more freedom, on demand orders would be available.
In addition, publishing houses make decisions based on the editor’s experience and taste. Many times, this results in low sales, bad economic performance of a book, and in the end it means the book will not be printed again.
“The decision on which books will be published is made based on the publisher’s experience and personal taste” — Rafael (Publisher in Corimbo)
Storybug’s data would be valuable for publishing houses. The information related to customer tastes and preferences would allow them to make data driven decisions, optimizing their resources. As a result, Storybug would have bargaining power with publishers.
“Big sellers can get up to a 42% discount from retail pricing.” — Rafael (Publisher in Corimbo)
NEXT STEPS
The last phase in Design Thinking methodology is to test the prototype with users. However, in this case I consider the best option would be to apply Lean methodology by creating a Minimim Viable Product (or MVP) and test the business idea.
FOR THE FUTURE
If the model is validated and considering the research, there are a few features that seem interesting to develop:
- A more detailed profile
This first proposal was made based on some basic research about evolutive development of children from 0 to 6 years old. Due to time limitations and personal knowledge this was the furthest the project could get at the time being. Developing a more accurate and significant child profile would require the involvement of psychologists specialized in children development.
- An account with the possibility of more than one profile
A 50% of Spanish families has more than one child. That’s why it would be interesting that each family could have one account with various profiles: one for each of their kids.
- Availability of books in different languages
In Spain there are various regions in which there is a second official language that co-exists with Spanish. A 43% of survey respondents indicates that they choose books according to language, so being able to choose language would be of great value for them.
In addition, in a world that is globalized, English and other foreign languages are considered to be important in children’s education. It would be interesting to add books in other languages for families who want to strengthen language learning through literature.
- Build a community amongst readers:
A 26% of people trust people they know to make choices around the books they end up purchasing. It might be because they share the same values or even because children enjoy commenting on the same book. Whatever the reasons it would be interesting to create something such as Goodreads for children’s books, where families could share what they’ve been reading and their reviews.
- Functions for people who give books as gifts to children
A 63% of people with children in their lives give them books as gifts, and 82% of them believe parents’ opinion is important. That’s why it would be very interesting to develop new functions to transform giving gifts into a more pleasant and exciting experience.
- Language related disorders
Fortunately, there is more and more knowledge about different language disorders. Giving children who suffer from these access to different adapted books, would probably help bring literature closer to many.
CONCLUSIONS
Society considers that it’s important that children read. No wonder. Literature shapes our thinking, it allows us to travel to distant or unexisting worlds, but also to understand in depth the world around us. It allows us to exercise critical thinking and empathy. This is why I believe that this service would be of great value to children.
In addition, for parents the top priority is their children:
“They are my priority. They have become my priority one hundred percent” — Lidia (Laia and Eider’s mother)
This service could bring value also to parents, knowing that they are choosing what is best for their kids. Most importantly, being able to devote their time to what matters the most: their children.
Thank you for getting this far! More than happy to read your comments on it 😊
