Design a bookshelf for kids.

We want to design a bookshelf for children.

Bookshelf - a piece of furniture to keep books.

Clarifying questions -

1. When we say children, what age group are we looking at? I think the upper age limit would be 12 and in this, we can have 2 groups - pre-school(till age 5) and the second group(5 to 12).
2. Can I assume that we are targeting the Indian demographic as I can relate to the children and the culture better?
3. What would be the purpose of this bookshelf? Is it only to keep books or do we want to explore the underlying motivation of having a bookcase which is reading and understanding books.
4. What is the goal that we want to achieve? Can I assume that it is adoption?

My approach would be to first understand the users, figure out their needs and based on those needs, I will brainstorm some solutions and summarize my recommendation.

Users -

For a bookcase, both the child as well as his/her parents become the users as the buying decision rests with the parents.

Pre-school: Till age 5

2nd group: 5 to 12.

I am going to focus on the second group as children start to read and write around this age and they start to build an understanding on their own. Also, they learn and read books for their school coursework which is again a focus area for parents.

What could be the use cases? What is their underlying need?

Needs and pain points -

1. Academic use case - Parents want to ensure that their child studies the course books regularly and performs well in school.
   1. Children are not motivated and there is no planned routine to study. The rewards are unknown. Parents come up with strict rules like you need to study for 3 hours daily but there is no feedback available to find out whether it works.
   2. While reading, there are doubts which need to be cleared and words come up whose meaning is not clear.
   3. The child just doesn't understand what is being taught in the school losing interest in the subject.
2. Fun use case - Children want to read stories on their own or want their parents to read out to them.
   1. As a child/parent, I don't know which book should I read
   2. As a child, I want my parents to read stories to me but they are busy
3. Keeping it organized - Parents want their children to keep their books organized.

Prioritize the needs -

I think the academic use case is most important because it will be a strong selling point to the parents and if we are able to build solutions that even children like, then it will be a win-win.

Under this - I would like to focus on the first need and touch upon the second one(words whose meaning is not clear)

Why? - The first need is important to parents and can help children build a learning approach in the longer run. The second one will be easy to build and also have a decent impact on learning.

After this, we can figure out solutions for the fun use case and keeping it organized.

Solution

1. Academic use case

   1.  Based on the coursework, the bookshelf could come up with a curated routine plan for the child taking care of their study and playtime. In order to motivate the children, there could be a reward system for each sitting. The rewards can simply like badges or it could earn them something tangible - go out/mobile time.
   Problem would be to figure out whether the child actually understood what they read i.e. it was a valuable session. For that, the bookshelf could generate a set of questions that tests the understanding of the subject

   2. we can build an interactive dictionary where the child speaks out the word - "What is the meaning of this word?" and the bookshelf responds back with the meaning and pronunciation.

2. Fun use case

   1. The bookshelf can have a book suggestion tool that can come up with storybooks for children.

   2. The bookshelf can read out the stories to the children. Parents can give a sample of their voice recording and the bookshelf is able to copy it. That would be amazing.

3. Keeping it organized

   1. Pre-set a timer for each day, during which the books need to be organized. For each time, the child gets a reward for organizing the books, and to have a check, the parent can do a random inspection and if they find any cheating, they can report it in the bookcase and a heavy penalty will be applied to the rewards.

Summary - We wanted to design a bookcase which is loved by both children and their parents. For that, we explored the underlying motivation which is reading and understand books. Keeping that in mind, we targeted children in age groups (5-12) and come up with a solution to address their academic needs - a curated routine plan for their study and playtime and an interactive dictionary. We also explored other use cases which could be built on top of this.

Design a Bookshelf for kids

Clarifying questions

1.       When you say kids what do you mean?  When I think of kids, I think of children over 3 and under 13.  I cap kids at 13 because

a.       The name changes to teenager

b.       Under Jewish law they are now adults

c.       Under Google policy they no longer need approval for the download of apps

d.       They now mostly have phones and tend to read on devices rather than books

e.       They are hormonal and generally smell bad and their attitude worsens.

Is it OK if I go with that assumption?

2.       When you say bookshelf what do you mean?  I’d like to assume you mean a physical bookshelf rather than a digital bookshelf and that the intended purposes is to hold books rather than to collect all the junk that children place onto any flat surfaces rather than actually put away. When you say bookshelf what do you mean? Is that assumption OK?

3.       Are there any constraint that you want me to consider? If not – I’ll make rational choices as the PM?

4.       Do you have a reason for making a kid’s bookshelf?  Otherwise I would like to assume the purpose is to design a kid’s bookshelf that encourages reading “otherwise known in my household as the mythical time near bedtime when parents and children enjoy a quite bonding moment to compensate for the day of screaming and tears.”

Mission

Google’s mission is to organize the worlds information and make it useful and accessible.  Reading is a critical part of having information be useful and accessible and it is in Google’s interest to have the next generation be literate not just watch some kid in Florida that has an above ground pool in his backyard filled with fish on YouTube. 

Personas

1.       The kid who say’s I don’t want to read.  This kid shouts I don’t want to read at the appointed reading time. 

2.       The kids who says I don’t know what to read.  This kid looks through the collection of books and rejects every book that is offered and wastes reading time.  After wasting reading time the child is then told that it is too late to read and then throws a fit that they haven’t had reading time

3.       The kid who reads happily.  This kid is posted about on Social Media by other parents.  I don’t trust social media.

4.       The child who stays quite at reading time and stealthily continues watching YouTube on their tablet.  This child by staying quite allows the parent to provide negative attention to other children. 

Compare the Personas.

1.       The kid who shouts no is in direct opposition to reading – while it would be great to help them I think we would hit a bigger audience if we focused on a child that wants to read more.

2.       The kid who doesn’t know what to read – is looking for guidance – even if all guidance is rejected.  Perhaps a solution would have a big impact here.

3.       The kid who reads happily – this kid only exists in the social media feeds of other parents and building a product around a fictious persona is a bad idea.

4.       The child who stays quite has figured out how to game the system and be ignored for their own benefit – I think we should yell at ---  I mean solve the problems of one of those kids.

In general, it is never a good idea to pick a agmonst the persona of childen.  The child personas will try to trick you into judging them, they will ask you to watch them do something and then suggest they do it better than the other personas.  This is a trap – you don’t have a favorite persona.   You love all your personas equally. 

However snice we have to pick one - In balance I think the kid who doesn’t know what to read is the candidate persona.  They would read if only someone provided them good guidance.  If only a parent would parade an endless set of choices and then try techniques like let’s just look at two books and you pick one, or a parent who would threaten them, or bribe them, if only…

User Journey Pain Points. 

The child is told its reading time

The child gleefully accepts reading time

The child is told to pick a book or pick a book from the selection the parent has chosen

The child rejects the books

The child goes to the bookshelf and removes all or nearly all the books as the parent tries to convince the child that any of the books would be great.

The child goes on and on without picking a book until it is too late to read. 

The child throws a fit that they are being denied reading time. 

The parent caves – it is reading after all and reading is important

The child picks a book

Reading takes place. 

Compare the pain points

We could compare all the pain points but the nexus of the problem starts when the child rejects the books and then rejects prior books.  Items before that don’t solve the problem of not knowing what to read.  The items after that where the child throws a fit could be avoided if the child simply picked a book in the first place.  Therefore, it seems if we solve the problem at that stage the rest of the problems may self-resolve. 

Brainstorm solutions

1.       The bookshelf with assistant functionality could know all the books on the shelf and suggest books that the child will like.

a.       The bookshelf could highlight the book by making the shelf glow or light up in the section where the book is located. 

2.       The bookshelf with assistant functionality could gamify reading

a.       To be honest “gamification is the answer to everything” – but don’t steal that line.

                                                               i.      I mean here I am a grown man looking for feedback from some guy named “Bijan” that I’ve never met before in an attempt to move from Silver PM to Gold PM. 

b.       The bookshelf could make recommendations and if those recommendations are followed the child could earn badges or tokens. 

                                                               i.      There could be different badges

·       Accepting the 1st selection badges and levels

·       Reading progressively harder books badges

·       Reading all the books badges

·       Reading different genres of books badges

c.       Badges and tokens could earn the child things

                                                               i.      Like screen time (YouTube)

·       That guy with the fish in the swimming pool needs to be watched

·       Training children by tokenizing the economy based on YouTube watching is in Google self interest – Just like getting Chromebooks into schools habituates children to Chromebooks.  Creating a token economy based on YouTube minutes could eventually lead to YouTube minutes becoming an accepted currency. 

3.       The bookshelf with assistant functionality could provide details on the book

a.       After the parent has selected a few books the bookshelf could announce the titles and the bookshelf could provide details on the books and provide a rating to help with decision making.

4.       The bookshelf could be set with a predetermined amount of time for the child to find a book.  If the child doesn’t find a book in that time the Bookshelf gets to pick the book. 

a.       As the parent “I’m sorry you don’t like that book – the bookshelf has spoken”  

Compare the Solutions

1.       The first solution of simply suggesting the book isn’t really different than a parent suggesting a book – it’s just coming from a different source – there is not incentive to take the suggestion.

a.       Knowing all the books is pretty easy – they can be scanned or voice assisted as they are added to the bookshelf

b.       Knowing the location is harder – we may need to have specific slots for books

c.       AI recommendation is easy – this is Google’s expertise. 

d.       Impact low – they are just recommendations and no guarantee they will be accepted. 

3.       The 3rd solution of providing book details might be helpful but there is no incentive to change behavior – child “Thanks for telling me that Pinkalicious is a story about a girl that likes everything pink and eats so many pink things that she turns pinks – but I still don’t want to read it.”

a.       Knowing all the books is pretty easy – they can be scanned or voice assisted as they are added to the bookshelf

b.       Knowing details of the is easy – google likely already has a large database of book details and synopsis and likely has recommendations

c.       Impact low – it’s just details no nudges to change behavior.

4.       The bookshelf gives the child sometime to reach a conclusion and then picks authoritatively what book to read.  The time aspects create some external pressure to pick and then the 3rd party bookshelf becomes the arbiter.  This is likely better than 1 and 3 as the time limit creates artificial scarcity which nudges the child and for some reason the bookshelf’s word is final.

a.       Knowing all the books is pretty easy – they can be scanned or voice assisted as they are added to the bookshelf

b.       Setting time limits – easy

c.       Picking a book based on child likes and interest – easy – Google’s expertise

d.       Impact medium – the time limit partially gamifies the experience however we have a negative force that the authoritarian nature of the bookshelf having final say may lead to rebellion.

2.       A full gamification model is always the answer and here the gamification model creates nudges to actually change behavior.

a.       Knowing all the books is pretty easy – they can be scanned or voice assisted as they are added to the bookshelf

b.       Picking a book based on child likes and interest – easy – Google’s expertise

c.       Providing tokens and badges for the child easy – as they do prescribed activities they get rewards

d.       Linking to the child’s youtube account – easy to medium – Google already has limits set for child linked accounts.

e.       Impact – high – gamification is always the answer. 

Metrics of Success

1.       Engagement – average number of badges earned per child

2.       Engagement – number of users

3.       Retention – average badge progress over time over time period

4.       Retention – users over time period

Summary

We are building a smart physical bookshelf for kids with the goal of increasing reading and focusing on children who can’t pick a book.  We solved the problem of not being able to pick a book by gamifying reading and accepting the selections of the smart bookshelf to move you through the badge process.  We identified a number of metrics that we would track but if we want to understand if the gamification is helping with selection then  we should look at the average badges earned per child and the average badges earned over time.  While looking at total users and users over time is important it doesn’t show that the system is working whereas badge progress does show that we are meeting our objectives. 

As a nice aside the gamification model will likely help other personas and could be applied to a digital bookshelf with even greater ease as we don’t have to identify the list of physical books. 

Limitations

The physical bookshelf system is limited by the tyranny of the shelf and the limited space provided – it can only select form books that are physically owned.  Additionally, the location of the book on the shelf and did it get put away is the hardest part of the system.  Again, the system might be easier to implement in a digital system.  Finally the system likely is applicable not just to kids but to adults and even smelly hormonal teenagers.