littleBits Electronic Music Inventor Kit
The littleBits Electronic Music Inventor Kit allows kids to build their own musical instruments, learn about the history of electronic music, and invent their own futuristic instruments. The kit comes with a range of electronic bits, templates, and the littleBits app that guides kids through the invention builds, STEAM based learning moments, play activities and prompts them to invent on their own.
My Role
I worked on this product from start to finish as a Product Designer along with a small Design team. We also worked closely with cross-functional teams within the littleBits company. I worked on the concept, design, user experience, creation of modular templates, building play interactions & activities, user testing with over 80 children across NYC, to writing, filming, and directing a series of guided instruction videos for the littleBits App. I also developed and implemented the user flow with Software and Product teams for delivering all video instructions, which was later executed in the apps for two additional kits that I worked on in the littleBits Inventor series.
Research
The team went through several rounds of the iterative design process. We began with research into kids who had created their own inventions, both public figures as well as littleBits community members. Then moved on to brainstorming, capturing all of our ideas through writing and drawing rough sketches. Once we grouped and matched the ideas into categories, we narrowed them down to a handful and started building out some very rough prototypes to see what took shape and stuck.
Iterative Prototyping
We created a new, more modular system of building templates for littleBits. We created a set of parameters to ensure that all three kits as well as future kits would have a cohesive and intuitive template design. Detailed video instructions are a part of the littleBits app experience, but a graphic number system on the templates allows kids to build without instructions. There are also directional arrows and color signifiers that provide further visual cues. This system was important to include, not only to make building the templates more intuitive, but to also capture kids that lack the attention span for video instructions.
User Testing & Feedback
We workshopped the concept by interviewing our target age range. We then created a simple guitar prototype with a several different activity prompts that we used for our first round of user testing with kids. We user tested with school children across NYC on a weekly basis during this part of the design process. The weekly feedback on our quick prototypes allowed us to continue to iterate and refine our product and get real time user insights that helped make this kit such a fan favorite with kids.
Instruction Set User Flow
From our user testing we found that kids wanted to build the templates and follow along with each activity, but they needed very clear instructions to accomplish the in app challenges. We realized we needed to come up with a unique way to deliver these instructions since we were dealing with an age range of kids at varied reading levels. I took lead on this part of the project and developed the instruction and learning content user flow for the mobile app, wrote the copy for each step of the instructions, executed and directed hundreds of videos, styled video content to create a cohesive look and feel across the kit.
