Project:

Kids App Design

Years:

2011–2015

Roles:

design lead
art direction
user experience
game design
visual design

A composite image of four different kids app screens featuring characters from Martha Speaks and Arthur.

I was a senior designer and then a design manager at GBH Digital, and I worked on a lot of educational games and apps for kids in my time there. On some projects I designed all aspects of the game experience myself and on other projects I oversaw and directed the work of a team of designers. The educational apps we worked on targeted a range of ages from preschoolers through 8-year-olds, and addressed a variety of topics from nutrition to math and science. My focus was always to make sure the game had a fun mechanic at its core with a supporting narrative that was engaging, all while making sure the game design reinforced the learning goals. I emphasized testing early and often and used larger projects like Next Generation Preschool Math as an opportunity to usher in a philosophy of prototyping, testing and iterating that would later become common practice in our office and in the industry.

D.W.’s Unicorn Adventure

D.W.’s Unicorn Adventure teaches kids about nutrition and healthy eating. Kids control D.W., Arthur’s sister, riding a unicorn through a colorful, side scrolling world—collecting healthy foods and avoiding unhealthy ones. This app launched in 2012 so it’s no longer available to play or download but there’s someone on YouTube keeping it alive in spirit. I was responsible for all facets of the game design from outlining the user’s overall experience and flow through each screen to drawing and animating the game characters to creating the layout and difficulty of each level.

An app icon with an up close illustration of D.W. riding a unicorn with a cloud and rainbow in the background.

A game screenshot showing D.W. riding a unicorn and avoiding candy bar and soda characters.

A game screenshot showing D.W. riding a unicorn through a forest with an evil character in front of her that looks like a bag of chips.

A map interface showing the user's path through all 12 levels of the app.

An end of level screen showing the user's score and D.W. up close on a unicorn. The unicorn's horn is piercing a plum.

A row of evil game characters, each with a face: cookie, chips, candy bar, fries, donut.

A user experience diagram all the game screens contained within the app and the user's flow through those screens.

Martha Speaks Word Spinner

Martha Speaks Word Spinner is a collaborative game designed for the iPad that teaches kids vocabulary words while they move through a social board game experience—telling stories and playing mini games. I designed this app in 2012 so it’s no longer available to download, but you can always check out the gameplay on YouTube. I was responsible for the game design, user experience, visual design and user interface of this app. I utilized existing character assets from the Martha Speaks show as a starting point for designing all the game screens and assets.

An app icon featuring Martha the dog pointing at a board game spinner with bones on it.

An app screen featuring Matha the dog and showing the title, “Martha Speaks Word Spinner.”

An app screen with a board game interface and dog game pieces. Martha the dog is standing next to the spinner with numbers and game icons on it.

An app screen featuring buckets on top of skateboards in a row, each bucket has an image on it: a tennis racket, beakers and a newspaper. There is a slingshot interface in the foreground with a ball in it ready to shoot. There's a bone at the top of the screen with a word in it that reads, “equipment.”

An app screen showing playing cards arranged in a messy pile. Each card has an image on it: shoes, a bicycle, condiments, an umbrella and an astronaut. There's a box at the bottom of the screen with a label on it that reads, “clothing.”

An app screen with a large interface made up of colorful buttons coming out of a cardboard box with speakers. The box is labeled with the word, “circus.”

Thumbnail sketches showing various game mechanics for apps: connecting cards together, dragging stickers into a bag, pulling back a spring shooter and sliding a bone into a hole.

A user experience diagram showing all the screens of the board game app and the user's flow through those screens.

Next Generation Preschool Science

After our innovative work on the Next Generation Preschool Math project, our team used that project as a model for a new iteration centering on science. At this point in my career at GBH Digital I was focusing on managing designers and directing the design work on kids projects like this one. My role on Next Generation Preschool Science focused on shaping the initial design directions of a family of apps and tools for the preschool classroom. I would sketch out initial mechanics and experiences and then direct and oversee designers’ work as they iterated through the design of these science apps.

Sketches of various app screens featuring plants with different game mechanics—spinning different types of wheels to grow the plant and tilting the game screen to water a plant.

Thumbnail sketches showing different screens of a plant journal app where kids can measure the height of a plant and take pictures of their plant.

A preschool classroom with a teacher measuring a plant and holding an iPad next to it. The iPad has a plant illustration on it with a measurement interface. — Prototype design by Frank LeClair

A user experience diagram showing various screens of a journal app and how the screens connect to each other.

Thumbnail sketches showing various levels of increasing complexity in a game with a ball rolling down a ramp trying to reach a goal at the other side of the screen.

Thumbnail sketches showing a game where the user can manipulate lights and objects to create different shadows.

A game screen with an animation of a bike wheel turning while creating different shadow shapes on the wall.

Next Generation Preschool Math

Check out my full writeup of Next Generation Preschool Math—a years-long research project centered around creating math apps for use in preschool classrooms.

A game screen with a top down view of a table with cups, ice cubes, lemons, a ladybug and a straw.

A preschool student playing Lemonade Stand and tilting the iPad.

A game screen showing photos of students within an illustrated scene of cars in a city.

A preschooler taking a photo of another classmate using the iPad game Photo Friends.