An app for parents and children to learn about fundamental sexuality knowledge and build awareness of self-protection against sexual abuse.
Sexuality Education for You and Your Children
SEC
Human-centered design | App design
Year of Completion
Summer 2021
Supervising Professor
David Meyers
Deliverables
Problem Statement
Secondary Research
User Research
Concept Development
User Testing
Experience & Visual Implement
Team Members
Yichun Huang
Silvia Zhou
Frank Zhu
Role
Project Lead
UI/UX Designer
Illustrator
Why is it important to have sex education at a young age?
According to current data, we can find…
1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.
Nearly 40% of child victims are abused by older or more powerful children.
73% of child victims do not tell anyone about the abuse for at least a year.
95% of sexual abuse is preventable through education.
Learning about sexuality at an early age builds awareness of sexual protection and can help children prevent child sexual abuse, whether as a victim or an aggressor.
Who are the target users?
Chinese families with children from 3 to 7 years old.
China is a traditional country, that focuses on exam grades more than child psychological health. Most schools and families never teach children about sexuality knowledge and ignore children's curiosity about gender differences between boys and girls. This ignorance of sex education will lead to crimes and mental disorders.
To help kids grow up healthily and happily, we want to find an opportunity to aware people, especially parents, of the importance of sex education and help their kids live in a safe community.
Challenges and Goals
How might we make parents aware of the importance of their kids learning sexuality knowledge at an early age?
How might we transmit the knowledge of sex knowledge in a simple way that children can understand?
User Analysis
3-7
39
their kids’ ages
parents involved
“I can’t fool my child because I am afraid that the child’s curiosity will become stronger and it will lead to more misunderstandings. Also, my child may learn wrong sexual knowledge from the Internet and other children. If there is a fixed time to communicate with your children about sexuality, or if I can give a response in time, it might make the situation better.”
“The most interesting ways for our children must be cartoons, games, and picture book stories. Sometimes, when I have no idea how to teach my children, I will take some online classes to get informed because it’s my first time to be a mother of two kids, and I want to provide them with the best education.”
User Journey
Parents’ Journey map
Children’s Journey map
Persona
Lan Zhang
40 years old
Mother of a 6-year-old daughter
She wants her daughter to grow up healthily and happily.
GOALS
She wants to bring her daughter the best education.
She wants a fun way to teach her daughter.
She needs to gather professional knowledge about child sexual education.
She wants an app that can bring knowledge to her children in an interactive and attractive way.
She loves to listen to audiobooks while doing chores or driving to save time.
She loves communicating with other moms to learn about the latest events for children and some educational information.
5 years old
Zhewei Huang
a kindergarten Student
He likes to play games with other people or on the iPad.
GOALS
He is curious about everything around him.
He likes pictures, videos, and interactive screens instead of plain words.
He wants to learn things from his parents.
He wants to understand things in a simple and easy way.
He loves the rewards from parents and teachers.
Opportunities
Lessons for parents
Educate parents first and let them aware of the importance of sexuality education for children.
Interactive games
Children love to learn things in an interactive and fun way.
Parents community
Many parents love to learn good education methods from other families. Therefore, this platform can provide a way for parents to talk and share ideas about their children's education.
Sketch & Prototype Development
Challenges and Goals
"It is good to include sessions for both parents and children, but it feels overwhelming for users with too much information. It's hard to distinguish whether the contents are for parents or children."
"As a mother, my everyday life is super busy with work, chores, and my son. I have no time for books. But in my case, I would love to listen to some music, podcasts, or audiobooks while doing the chores or driving."
"On the appointment page, I think it's better to show the time such as 11:00- 11:30 AM instead of just showing 11 am so that users can know how long the consultation will last."
"Since it' s the app for parents and children, maybe you could make the cover of picture books larger with fewer words."
Brand Design
"S" represents the initial of "Sexuality education for you and your children".
The shape around the "S" represents parents' care for their children.
We are trying to give support to both children and parents in sexuality education.
Updated App Map
Visual Design
Interactive Book
We are trying to create an interactive book that could bring children more interest while learning sexuality knowledge.
Future Iteration
Children are less interested in books, because they think the visual is not so attractive. They think they would prefer to have game-styled reading
More fun games
Children love to have some more well-designed and cute animal guidances in the app as their friends to lead them through the books, games, etc.
More cute characters
During the research and development, we mostly focused on the parent group but less on the child group. We should stay closer to both of our target user groups and learn more about their needs and preference, especially the group we are not familiar with, like children.
Learn more about the unfamiliar users