Play is the work of the child.
Maria Montessori
Costumes are a large market—Halloween is one of the largest spending holidays at $9 billion spent in the US, representing sales of about $86 per person.
Our efforts to date have been in product development. However our understanding and focus on the user experience has been little to none.
We hypothesize that multiple modes of instruction—printed, video, and web-based—will contribute confidence and reduce errors during the costume-making process.
Planning
Heuristic Evaluation
3 Similar, competitive products
from Wintercoft, Lapa studios and Ivy Paper Art.
Heuristics based off of Gerhardt-Powals’ cognitive engineering principles.
Diary study
15 families
Unmoderated, remote
Sent materials to make costume
Users provided recordings of the process & took a conclusion survey.
Learning
Crafting brings the family together
Crafting encompasses activities appropriate for both children and adults. Everyone can contribute.
Families solve problems together.
Crafting is a rare enough activity for adults, that the expertise gap between parents and children is surprisingly small—leading to teamwork-like behaviors especially in families with older children.
Users sought diversions to break up tedious steps.
Users had uncertainty around fitting the costume at the end. Often would take re-work to see why it wasn’t fitting properly.
Kids were really eager to decorate. Parents would go back and flatten the costume after it was built to make it easier to decorate then have to re-assemble.
Illustration tells you what to do. Video tells you if you’re doing it well.
Users (who were provided multiple instruction formats) looked to video when they were confused, and most who did reported that doing so gave them confidence.
Application
Having activities in multiple places lead to uncertainty
if they had completed everything they previously
needed to.
Without ergonomic illustration, the technical task was unclear.
Using native iOS picture-in-picture can allow embedded video to play alongside technical instructions.