Glow System Architecture

Projected & Touch Hardware Experience

Overview: One of my first tasks was defining the physical device’s system architecture; this meant creating an experience across two screens (a vertical touch display and a touch-sensitive projected space) that accommodated video calling as well as content browsing, and was designed in a way that made sense for kids ages 3-9.

Process Summary: I spent my time creating information architecture diagrams, wireframes, and scrappy prototypes to share with stakeholders and communicate the functional role of each screen, then produced prototype artifacts using various tools for usability studies with children and adults to inform the solution with data and uncover the clearest mental model for kids: separating the device’s two core functions (video calling and app-based play) on each of Glow’s displays.

Solution: The vertical display is used exclusively for initiating, receiving, and managing video calls with adults, while the touch-sensitive projected space would be used for browsing and playing digital activities; this separation of concerns created a clear mental model for kids.

Business Impact: Defined the foundational system architecture adopted by all other features on the Glow device.

Connecting With An Adult

Touch Hardware Experience

Overview: Once Glow’s system architecture was in place, I defined the video calling experience on the vertical touch display. For this feature, I worked closely with Visual and Motion Designers to create a calling experience that leveraged real-world metaphors to simplify the technical complexities of calling, making it fun and easy to connect with adults.

Process Summary: I led this work by penning strategy documents focused on investing in Visual and Motion Design solutions that leveraged real-world physical metaphors to simplify the complexities of video calling, created information architecture diagrams, low-mid fidelity wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes to share, communicate and evaluate with stakeholders, then worked closely with Design and Engineering partners to deliver the solution.

Solution: Children can “connect” with adults on the vertical display by simply tapping a face, which initiates a “dialing” animation used to reframe the technical concept into “finding” a remote adult out in Glow’s the Everywhere Forest.

Business Impact: Defined the foundational architecture and mechanism by which kids connected with adults to play, used by all other features and activities (apps) on the product.

Browsing For Activities

Projected Hardware & Mobile Experience

Overview: After completing the Glow’s Calling Experience, I moved my focus back to the projected display, where I would build the information architecture kids used to browse and find activities; for simplicity’s sake, this was a screen that functioned quite similarly to the Home Screen for a phone oriented around app-finding. The main goal was to create an experience that helped kids find activities easily, yet also scalable to thousands of activities and multiple categories.

Process Summary: I created information architecture diagrams and low-mid fidelity wireframes to share and communicate with stakeholders, designed, prototyped and tested multiple information architecture approaches to better understand how kids and adults think about discovering and browsing that impacted speed and method of content discovery, discovered and evangelized the importance of Recently Played content (kids love revisiting the same content often) and a flat information architecture that could weigh activity types equally, at scale.

Solution: A row-based grid of activities, like Netflix / Disney+, where each row represents a distinct category of activities.

Business Impact: Defined the foundational architecture and mechanism by which kids discovered activities play, used by all other features and activities (apps) on the product.

Browsing For Activities Version 2.0

Projected Hardware & Mobile Experience

Overview: After launching Version 1 of Glow’s Browse Experience in a private beta, I began to assess the wealth of feedback, uncovering that many parents felt their kids 1) weren’t having fun while browsing for activities, 2) were annoyed by how difficult it was to browse for specific activity categories, and 3) did not care about finding activities quickly, and instead just wanted a familiar place to find them.

Process Summary: I penned and presented strategy documents to leadership to get investment, outlined tenets and areas of focus, and led a team of Visual, Motion and Sound Designers through redefining the browsing experience so that it felt like an activity in and of itself, creating relationship-building moments along the way that equally addressed children’s biggest unmet needs from the first version.

Solution: Activity browsing would now take place within the child’s fictitious treehouse, leveraging physical metaphors that separated different types of activity content into different “rooms” in uniquely themed spaces that could be personalized and grown with content + features over time.

Business Impact: Delivered a new browsing experience in which kids had no issues browsing for activities, quickly browsed by categories (i.e. art, books, games), had more connecting moments with their parents (marked by behavioral signals), and most importantly, had a heck of a lot more fun exploring. Following evaluation and insights presentation to Senior Leadership, this redefined browse experience was slotted into the Product Roadmap for the following year.

Connecting With A Child

Tablet & Mobile Experience

Overview: One of the most challenging aspects of designing on Glow was that you always had to think about three screens at once: the child’s experience (on the dual-screened Glow device) and the connected adult’s experience, on a tablet or smartphone. I delivered the fundamental design solution that enabled adults to call their favorite children, browse content on the child’s projected display, and manage video calling functionality all in one interface.

Process Summary: I created low-mid fidelity wireframes to share and communicate with stakeholders, designed and evangelized the importance of starting every connected session with a face-to-face moment, partnered with Visual and Motion Designers to deliver comprehensive solutions to the Engineering team, and worked closely with the Engineering team to implement video management solutions that scaled across many device aspect ratios.

Solution: A picture-in-picture video feed of the child overlayed on top of the child’s projected display, represented and fully interactive by the adult in the mobile app.

Business Impact: Defined the foundational interaction design by which adults connected with kids, used by all other features and activities (apps) on the product.

Drawing Activities

Projected Hardware & Mobile Experience

Overview: After delivering many essential features on Glow, I was able to spend some time leading UX on the Drawing activity. Though this activity had already been built, I addressed many critical customer pain-points that impacted the activity’s overall satisfaction score, and introduced new concepts and features into the activity for the future.

Business Impacts:

• Redesigned the “drawing prompt” selection experience so that kids and adults could browse prompts faster.
• Penned a strategy document and led a competitive analysis on the introduction of the “undo” feature.
• Established a consistent mode of selecting and deselecting drawing tools to reduce child confusion.
• Simplified the Scan experience to reduce adult confusion.

Music Activities

Projected Hardware & Mobile Experience

Overview: As work on the Drawing activity slowed, I stepped-in to help Product establish a strategy for how Glow could introduce Music activities into the catalogue.

Process Summary: I spent much of my time researching music’s impact on human relationships, assessing successful music products for kids, penned various strategy documents outlining the metrics by which to choose particular types of music activities for Glow’s target audience, collaborated with third-party game studios and individual creators as a design consultant to help translate their ideas into music activities for Glow, and created countless mid fidelity wireframes to communicate early music activity concepts with stakeholders and adjacent team members.

Business Impact: Defined the foundation of Glow’s strategic approach for exploring and introducing music activities.