Capstone Exploration Part 1

Using a Stakeholder Map to View the Problem Space Holistically

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to put children at the center of this project. I had just finished reading The Anxious Generation by Johnathan Hadit and What Schools Could Be by ____ and I realized that many of the systems and tools kids engage with are not primarily designed for their unique needs, goals, desires, and brain physiology.

Ex. School curriculum is designed around what’s easiest to measure and test. Social media is designed for adults who already have an understanding of the social etiquette needed to navigate in person communities, groups, and relationships.

I wanted to take an approach where I design a variation of systems like these but instead keep the child at center. By doing this, I can compare my design solutions with what already exists and see if that opens up any avenues for better design.

I decided to start with a stakeholder map so I can visually see the other roles in this system, track what power they have, what relationships they have with eachother, and start to identify which sections provide the best opportunity to jumpstart a new system/behavior.

At the center is the child.
Immediately surrounding are the parents, teachers and friends of the child.
Further out are the content creators, device creators, and internet data providers.

Project Focus Rationale Before the Stakeholder Map

Central Question 1

How different do mobile device with apps designed to be used within critical period of a kid’s mind look and function like compared to what is currently on the market?

In this project, I’m not assuming that current apps in the app store weren't created with research, or aren’t intuitively designed to be beneficial for kids. But I am aware of other factors and expectations that tie a designers hand behind their back.

I though it would be interesting to explore and design without any of those extra ties and see what solutions come out of this experimental project. I then intend to compare these with what’s currently in the market and see if I was able to open up any new paths for what ethical design for children's apps/virtual spaces could look like.

Project Focus Rationale After the Stakeholder Map

Central Question 2

How do dynamics within spaces children grow up in influence the social etiquette of their generation’s adulthood?

After laying out the stakeholders, map, I realized there is A LOT MORE that happens in a kids life that can determine how the apps they use affect them.

For example:

What environments for in-person play they have inside the classroom or afterschool
How much screentime their parents let them have
If they have siblings and what relationship they have with them
What their friends do with their free time and what spaces they go when they’re online

I also realized that even if we have a solid understanding of how the brain works, that’s not enough to create something impactful. I have to take an ethical stance. I have to decide what experiences I want the kid to have and what takeaway is important for them to be thriving adults. After I decide that, then i’m able to use what I understand about the unique physiology of the children’s brain to design how the interactions/experiences/system should look and function like in order to achieve the impact I determined was the best.

I knew I had to do a lot more research, so I decided to start by looking into how technology is evolving, and what type of adults can thrive in a future world dominated by these tools.

Looking into the Experiences and Opinions of Those in “Ground Zero” to Get a Early Vision for What the Future Will Look Like.

I needed to find qualities of the present that were here in the present. By listening to the opinions and experiences of those very involved in virtual spaces, ie. virtual world developers and community moderators, I can start to see what vision for the future they’re yearning for as well as understand what current tools and systems don’t meet their needs and expectations.

The end goal is to get a sense of what adults will thrive in a future dominated by tools like AR/VR, Quantum Computing, AI, Nano Tech, etc. I have to see what direction we’re headed in and the best way to do that is to understand from the current and most involved users what experience they want and from the developers, what future vision/mission is fueling their design decisions in these first few iterations.

Analogous Inspiration

Central Question 2 (CQ2) is built off the idea that there are factors in a child’s life that serve as the foundation for deeper rooted behaviors, expectations, and values that fuel their adult action and in turn, the collective social etiquette of spaces they occupy and have strong involvements in. I decided to use Analogous Inspiration to closely examine events in history and note what type of childhood factors had enough impact to where the adults in that generation made changes to an established system.

Both of my Analogous Inspiration topics revolve around changing mental health norms.

The first topic looks into how different mental health norms in each generation effected how these generations handled he Covid 19 pandemic and isolation.
The second topic examines how the mental health values and beliefs present in each generation’s childhood shaped the types of resources later made available in workplaces when they became adults. This questions also dives into the current multi generational conversation about mental health resources and examines what role/responsibility each generation bring into a system change this drastic.

Gathering the Insight

To gather the data, I primarily relied on sociology papers and research projects that focused these topics. I sorted the insights into a chart so I can more easily track, organize, and compare points that are important.

My go-to method to organize data is though a miro sticky note board, but I decided that for this activity, it would be faster and more fruitful to consume as much diversity of content as possible since i’m essentially comparing the conclusions of different researchers instead of starting from scratch, conducing all the test/interviews etc.

The Questions that Rose From This Activity

The biggest theme I noticed is the interconnectedness of generations. My activity summary dives more into this, but for this case study, I felt it was more important to share with you what questions about my research topic popped up in response to these conclusions.

What is currently being advocated for in virtual spaces?
What type of social etiquette does Gen Beta and Z want in online spaces?
I understand that generation beta will grow up and form their own opinions and fight for what they want, but what should do for them now that can set them up for success in the future?
How can we allow for social etiquette to be changed and learned in spaces as complex as the metaverse?

Project Focus Rationale Before Analogous Inspiration Activity

Central Question 2

How do dynamics within spaces children grow up in influence the social etiquette of their generation’s adulthood?

This question revolves around how social etiquette is learned in childhood, created thought the course of the teenage/adult years, and exercised in adulthood. There is more of an emphasis on that progression of social etiquette.

By taking this approach, I can understand how to design in-school and afterschool metaverse games that enable to child to build social etiquette that is crucial for the success of the culture and community that these kids will be immersed in when they’re older.

In my early research on stakeholders, I watched YouTube videos featuring game designers and community moderators. I observed that the social etiquette in three popular virtual world games—Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite—varies significantly. Surprisingly, this isn’t due as much to actual design of each game; but the social factors, values, and expectations that get inherited from existing players to new players.

Project Focus Rationale After Analogous Inspiration Activity

Central Question 3

How can we prepare Generation Beta to navigate and lead in a rapidly evolving technological and social landscape?

The social etiquette of one generations’ adulthood is influenced by the ideas and experiences of their youth, but how ideas and etiquette change over time are not mutually exclusive to interactions with other people in their same generation.

Most of the spaces we’re in are multi generational. (In my opinion, I feel my generation is too quick to dismiss the opinions of their older co-workers/family members on the basis of irrelevance since times now are so different.)

But I believe that instead of focusing on designing rules and set norms, I want to explore how social etiquette is learned, understood, and reinforced. In metaverse spaces, what is the sweet spot that allows for a strong and agreed upon social etiquette to be understood and learned by new players wanting to enter while still being able to be flexible enough to develop over time and meet the needs and values of the collective body of users in a space at any current moment.

Convergent Thinking

In the last two sections:

mapping out the relationships between stakeholders in a system
finding the hidden starting point under layers of complexity

I used divergent thinking to explore the problem space.

This section uses convergent thinking to sharpen the question that I want to take forward into concepting and prototyping. I needed this question to encapsulate the core need of the target audience, communicate what I am well-positioned to address, and clearly state the solution space i’m exploring.

I expanded off my Miro Board, using blue sticky notes to find the connections between the core needs of the child with what the impact that each stakeholder is positioned to make. I was also able to identify and articulate the key themes that are central to this project that helped guide everything that came after this section.

Here were the 5 themes:

Social Responsibility
Intrinsically Motivated
Intellectual Leaders
Shape Social Norms in Virtual Spaces
Guide Impact of Technology

The project focus between these two central questions are essentially the same. All that changes is my conviction and explanation behind why I think these central questions are important and impactful. With each section, my vision becomes more clear and I become even more informed which enables me to explain my central question in better and easier to understand ways.

Admittedly, the explanations start off rough with a lot of word vomit and unclear arguments, but as I go through these last 3 sections, I become more confident in the direction of this capstone.

Project Focus Rationale Before Convergent Thinking

Central Question 3

How can we prepare Generation Beta to navigate and lead in a rapidly evolving technological and social landscape?

To prepare for the era shaped by powerful technologies like the metaverse and quantum computing, we need to create a meaningful and effective elementary school curriculum for teaching foundational social etiquette in virtual spaces. This curriculum should provide children with an understanding of the impact of dynamics within these spaces that can adapt as they mature and as technology evolves, fostering their ability to learn from and influence both older and younger generations. The real challenge lies in preparing Generation Beta to become leaders who will shape social norms and guide the impact of this technology. It is urgent that we equip them with the ethical grounding necessary to steer these innovations in directions that allow us to keep our empathy and curiosity, and autonomy.

Generation Beta is special because they’re uniquely positioned to learn from the experiences of Generation Z and Alpha while setting the stage for future generations. If properly prepared, they can act as a bridge, ensuring that the immense potential of these technologies is realized in a way that benefits society as a whole.

Project Focus Rationale After Convergent Thinking

Central Question 4

How might we design criteria for meaningful and effective elementary school curriculum that prepares generation beta to become socially responsible, intrinsically motivated and intellectual leaders who will shape social norms in virtual spaces and guide the impact of technology like the metaverse and quantum computing?

To prepare for the era shaped by powerful technologies like the metaverse and quantum computing, we need to create a meaningful and effective elementary school curriculum for teaching foundational social etiquette in virtual spaces.

This curriculum should provide children with an understanding of the impact of dynamics within these spaces that can adapt as they mature and as technology evolves, fostering their ability to learn from and influence both older and younger generations.

The real goal lies in preparing Generation Beta to become socially responsible, intrinsically motivated and intellectual leaders who will shape social norms and guide the impact of this technology in the home, community, and around the world.

Generation Beta is special because they’re uniquely positioned to learn from the experiences of Generation Z and Alpha while setting the stage for future generations. If properly prepared with ethical grounding and social skills, they can act as a bridge, ensuring that the immense potential of these technologies is realized in a way that benefits society as a whole, online and offline.

Many of the readers of this are either Gen Z, Millennials, or Boomers, regardless, it’s important to understand that we have a different relationship and opinion towards emerging technology caused by what we’ve experienced with early iterations of this technology. I understand that we’ve been in a period of rapid innovation, bombarded with new innovations that are being pumped out faster than we can handle and it can sometimes be hard to imagine that there’s even more technology that can drastically change our reality. But it’s important that for a second, we put aside our fortune-telling anxiety and use the mistakes we’ve seen to craft a better future.

When designing systems as complex as virtual worlds, it’s obvious that what will determine it’s success will be more than the design of the interface, user interactions, back end development, communication capabilities. It lies in the culture created and determined by the users. Community moderation is necessary, but oftentimes just treats symptoms that are caused by the lack collective values and well understood social etiquette.

We’re in the process of designing something even bigger that a virtual world, something who’s goal is to coincide with our day to day social lives. We’ve got to experience and early iterations with social media platform like Myspace, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and hundreds of other social media apps in the Appstore. Out generations were shown these spaces, we figured out where we fit, and learned how to act based on what we’ve seen other users doing. But Generation Beta has the chance to be more properly introduced into this new type of social connection. To not just learn to find their place and adapt, but become leaders, shaping this technology into something better. The potential of this tech might not realize itself until the adulthood that generation.

So how can we shape how we bring up this generation so they can pioneer and shape that this new technology could be?

Capstone Exploration Part 1: Finding the Thread Between my Strong Compulsions, Interests, and Anxieties.