Brief

Given a few personas of parents and children, design an asymmetrical experience that uses some crowd sourcing to solve some problem for parents and "tweens."

The problem we identified was that as kids begin to grow into teenagers, there is a transition that must begin taking place where the kids become more independent little by little. We targeted this period of time and interviewed kids and parents to identify their goals, comforts, and hard lines in these interactions.

Findings

A surprising outcome of our research was that, in general, teens did not mind their parents being able to see their current location on a map so long as they didn't call and bother them. We also didn't expect to learn that a big concern for parents was whether the person driving their child was a safe driver or not.

Solution

The app concept is that kids propose activities to their parents (and include other kids in their plans) who can then approve (and arrange transportation with other parents) or deny the activity. Over time, assertions can be made with reasonable certainty about the suitability of the place in question based on how other parents approved or denied it in the past and this information can be used to help parents make informed decisions about where their kids are.