Tabletopia: A tool for staying focused with remote learning
Why focus on families with kids with ADHD?
The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of the multiple pandemics affecting the physical and mental well-being of every person around the globe. Daily routines, school and work environments, and opportunities for human connection have been disrupted, forcing people to rapidly adjust to a new, distressing normal.
Children attending school online during the pandemic face a myriad of challenges, ranging from staying engaged in the classroom to completing their homework and understanding their learning goals. Social distancing also creates obstacles for meaningful connections among kids. Meanwhile, their parents or caregivers are either working remotely, facing increased challenges as frontline workers, or are impacted by high unemployment rates, struggling to manage their children’s learning needs. These struggles are exaggerated for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other developmental learning disabilities.
Our design problem is centered around the needs of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in remote learning environments. According to the CDC, “ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors (may act without thinking about what the result will be), or be overly active”. In classroom settings, this behavior can be seen as simply disruptive, often resulting in disciplinary actions ranging from being called out by the teacher to suspension. According to Ford et al. (2018), children with ADHD are more likely to be suspended from school than a neurotypical child, resulting in a continued cycle of disciplinary action, higher dropout rates, and long-term psychological distress and low self-esteem. Furthermore, children living in unstable environments as well as students of color are disproportionately represented in these suspensions.
Nearly all schools across the United States started the 2020–2021 school year remotely, as COVID-19 cases continue to rise. Many children and their families rely on the structure and resources provided by in-person school; the practically immediate shift to remote learning has created a range of management and emotional issues for families juggling the competing needs of working, caregiving, and supervising their child’s schooldays.
Due to the barriers that already exist for children with ADHD in physical classroom spaces, our design question aims to uncover the challenges faced by children with ADHD in remote learning environments, with the ultimate goal of supporting their well-being in the online classroom and beyond.
So we asked, “How might we support the well-being of children ages K-5 with ADHD as they navigate remote learning and overall personal development?
What is Tabletopia?
Tabletopia is a customizable, interactive interface to support families with classroom engagement and home learning. Tabletopia utilizes a specialized gesture-tracking projector that attaches to any table in the home where learning happens. The layout of the projected screen is a centralized home screen, which includes places for learning tools like notepads and art supplies, a view of the day’s school schedule and daily routines, reminders, and timers for activities.
Features include:
- Programmed rewards (such as playing with electronics or eating treats) for completion of tasks like homework assignments
- Opportunities to stay connected with peers for inspiration and encouragement by sharing classwork and adding public messages to other students
- Mental health and emotional support opportunities when parents program self-care tasks for their children to complete
How did we create Tabletopia?
Data Gathering and Analysis
We incorporated several user-centered design methods to inform our designs. Through several interviews, surveys, and video diary studies, we generated interesting insights into the top concerns, needs, and preferences. In addition, we determined the current conditions of remote-learning and confirmed our target audience. The stakeholders we focused on were:
- Children, k-5th grade with ADHD
- Parents of children k-5th grade with ADHD
- Caregivers, babysitters, etc. of children k-5th grade with ADHD
- Educators of children k-5th grade with ADHD
To digest the information, we made affinity diagrams to look for themes and patterns then, synthesized personas that guided our discussions of the findings. From there we brainstormed many ideas for interventions and voted on our favorite ideas.
Prototype Development
When we decided on our concept of a table-based, gesture-tracking tool, we started to imagine the scenarios in which it would be used. To illustrate these ideas we created storyboards and mock-ups. When those were refined, we were ready to share design specifications as well as the details of the aesthetics (via a style guide), which could inform designers and technologists on how to implement this idea.
The final prototype!
Tabletopia enables greater connectivity between teachers, students, and parents so that kids feel a sense of clarity with their learning expectations while receiving support and motivational boosts with an easy-to-use tool. You can view our final project overview below:
About Us
Socially Distanced Designers is a group of M.S. and PhD students from the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering program: Alaina Orr, Alice Zheng, Rafael Laus, Serene Gao and Rebecca Michelson. As part of a graduate course in User Centered Design in Autumn 2020, we were tasked with designing for a user group in the context of health and well-being in 2020. We conducted this project remotely; all user research, collaboration, etc. was done over Zoom and using virtual tools.
