Ellfy
Re-imagining Children's reading accessibility
Ellfy Concept
The concept of Ellfy grew on me since I initially learned about our design focus of “access”. The inability to read begins in everyone's lives globally; however, it is a skill that is essential to our everyday lives. The purpose of this product is to help children that are learning how to read. Especially since COVID, it has become more difficult for children because online instruction becomes repetitive and disengaging. On the other hand, having parents working from home has made it difficult for them to help their children because their Zoom calls could be at any time of the day. This is where Ellfy comes in handy because it keeps children engaged with a reading by having color-coded lights, read-out-loud capacity, positive reaffirmation, and celebration music. All to ensure that children feel supported, and accompanied and are having fun while learning to read.
Storyboard for concept flow
I decided to start the design process by sketching out a storyboard of how I envisioned Ellfy to be used. This allowed me to narrow down the main features I wanted to incorporate into the product.
Why an Elephant?
A major design decision I made for this product was to make it in the shape of an Elephant character and my target audience is children ranging from 4-9 years of age. I chose an elephant because I thought it was a fun zoo animal and it would be attractive to younger and older children that need more support in reading.
Programming with Python on Raspberry Pi
I believe Ellfy was successful because in the initial stages of the project I really struggled with the coding aspect since this was my first time using raspberry pi and python. After reading multiple python scripts; on a Friday night I powered my raspberry pi and went into the python scripts and started changing some of the functions and I clicked run. This was one of the most successful days in this project and I felt so much joy that my script worked as I wanted it to. I will never forget this light bulb moment for me. This gives me so much motivation and hopes as I evolve as a designer using new software, fabrication, and hardware tools to create tangible products. I now know to start early, ask lots of questions, and as they say in design; “fail fast and fail often” in order to improve at each iteration. I will continue to work to test my unfamiliar skills and expand my knowledge as the semester proceeds.
Incorporating UI Mockups
I decided to incorporate a mobile UI as a way to allow parents to see their children's reading statistics. This data will help the parent and child stay connected with reading progress. There could also be further potential to have the children's teachers access this data to better assist the child in their reading journeys.
Future Envisionment
Twenty minutes of reading a day can become very nuanced and Ellfy can encourage children to pause, get help when needed, and celebrate their victories because positive encouragement builds the confidence of learning readers. I envision Elly being a part of every child's life because we are all learners and we all learn at different rates. I could also envision Ellfy to be an assistant to teachers during reading circle time because it could catch the children's attention when distractions arise. My product is nowhere near perfect; it's only the first iteration. With current project time constraints, my Ellfy prototype needs modifications. In the future, I hope to enhance the hardware and also fabrication in order to make Ellfy look more realistic.