Freddy the Thingbug
Follow along with Freddy the Thingbug on his quest to find what makes him special! Swipe to turn the page, tap on characters to see them come to life, and find hidden objects that wiggle and make funny sounds. This interactive story app is recommended for preschool children ages 3–5.
Freddy the Thingbug is an adorable little green bug with big eyes and a big heart. But Freddy doesn’t know what makes him special. He can’t run fast or jump high or fly like the other bugs. So he goes on an adventure, and he learns about himself along the way.
Society pressures kids to stand out, excel, and be the best at something. But we can’t all be the fastest or the smartest or the most creative. This original story embraces Freddy’s insecurities, and with the help of his friends, he learns that what truly makes him special comes from inside and can’t always be seen or measured.
Opportunity:
Children are learning to use technology before they can even walk or talk.
In fact, children’s access to technology has grown incredibly over the last decade. In the U.S., the percentage of children 8 and under who live in homes with a tablet has increased from 8% in 2011 to 75% in 2020, according to the Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight, 2020.
Screen time has also increased, ranging from an average of 49 minutes for kids under two, to three hours for kids 5–8. This may seem like a lot, but the perceptions of screen time for children have really shifted over the years. Nearly three-quarters of parents say it helps the child’s learning, and 60% say it helps the child’s creativity.
Challenge:
Kids love stories, but parents don’t always have the time to read from books, and cartoons don’t really challenge kids to think creatively.
Solution:
An interactive story that kids can follow along with and navigate on their own. This app allows busy parents to accomplish tasks uninterrupted, (or get a few minutes to themselves), while also encouraging a positive message and a healthy relationship with technology.
Technology:
I started with Adobe Illustrator for character and background design, including the creation of the custom “Freddy” font, then imported those files in Adobe After Effects for animation. At first it was a struggle to figure out how to incorporate animations in SwiftUI. But then I discovered Lottie files, that uses a plugin for After Effects to export animations as JSON files, and a package for Xcode that imports and reads them as keyframes. I used Audition to redord and edit the voices and sound effects. Finally, I pulled everything together in Xcode with SwiftUI to make the finished app.
The app had an easy to navigate user interface with only two input gestures that were demonstrated in a short tutorial. Swipe right and left to turn the page and tap on characters or objects that animate with sound effects.
Testing:
My overall goal for user testing was to measure the usability of the app, for both kids and adults, and to identity areas that needed improvement. I wanted the app to be easy enough that a 3- to 5- year-old could navigate it either with the help of a parent or on their own, but not so simple that they get bored with it quickly.
Lessons Learned:
1. Kids are brutal (and parents have strong opinions).
I knew there were a few “bugs” in the app that needed fixing, but overall the usability scale was pretty good. It was the content that wasn’t quite right. Clearly, I didn’t know anything about kids.
2. Kids don’t like big words (but they love fart noises).
They don’t really understand the concept of quotations or narration, so the bugs needed to speak for themselves with different voices. Everything has to make a noise and it needed to be clearer what is interactive.
3. Kids have the attention span of a gnat (and a meltdown is often just seconds away).
The app had to be usable by the kids without an adult. They wanted to tap on everything and turn the pages at their own speed. In several interviews it was clear very quickly that the children were more comfortable with the devices than the adults. In fact, if the child wasn’t allowed to navigate the device on their own, they lost interest immediately. We also heard from parents that while they adore spending time with their kids, reading or playing together, when it comes to apps, the kids should be able to use them on their own.
(Advice)
This is where my piece of advice comes in. If I could share one thing with future students, it would be to stay humble. TEST your product! As early and as often as you can. You must know your audience, and you can’t let your ego or biases get in the way. It can be challenging, I certainly struggled with the (very young) human interaction part of the process, but the more time you spend on it, the more valuable and rewarding the results can be.
Pivot:
The feedback was unanimous in every group, and they had some fantastic ideas. Unfortunately for me, that meant a major overhaul.
Based on the testing results, there were several key areas that need to be reevaluated and further developed before product launch. Major changes included integrating dialogue instead of the more traditional “story” narration. Speech bubbles asl part of the character animation, and they should go by “proper” bug names instead of nicknames. The characters should all have dedicated voices and sound effects and should clearly animate when they are speaking. Two of the biggest technical objectives were to enable overlapping audio, and a continuous static background to make it easier to identify tap-able objects.
The Final App
Once all the changes were successfully made and troubleshot, I decided at the very last minute before upload to the App Store to make it work for iPhones as well as iPads. The app package is currently in review with a hopeful release date of May 6.
Since I’ve already put in all of the work for the infrastructure and world building, I’d like to create more Freddy stories, and maybe even branch out into new series. So be on the lookout for future expansions with new stories and characters!
