Nickelodeon Screens Up
Nickelodeon Screens Up is a mobile application which blends Augmented Reality with TV, providing a second screen interactive experience as well as offline AR games and other branded content for children.
ROLE
UX Designer
PROJECT TYPE
App Design
Augmented Reality
Second-Screen Experience
CLIENT
Nickelodeon
CREDITS
The Mill
YEAR
2017
The Role
As part of the Creative Technology team at The Mill, I work on the initial user journeys across different areas of the app, including the live event and the evergreen content. Following the instructions from the Lead UX Designers, I amended wireframes based on feedback and ready to be delivered to the client.
On the final stage of the project, I collaborated with the development team, testing the app across a very diverse range of devices, documenting bugs and testing scenarios, to ensure the delivery was as seamless as possible.
The Goal
The Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards is one of the channel most watched shows, bringing in 7.3 million viewers at times. Our goal was to create an app that kept children engaged during the program and also provide branded content once the show was finished.
The Challenges
This project presented two big challenges: designing for children and working within the constraints of the used technology. Our core audience ranged from 2-16 years old. The difficulty of this is that the mental development of each of these users is dramatically different.
Nickelodeon provided us with a vast amount of research when designing for children. We were granted access to analytical data from existing apps as well as access to some key players who could discuss their findings first hand.
With Augmented Reality (AR) technology the problems were different. How did the phone detect a TV screen? What actions did the user need to make the phone recognise a TV? What happens if the phone wasn't compatible? All these factors would need to be considered and designed for.
Designing for Children
There were many considerations to be made within this project due to the target demographic of a young user base combined with a quick turn-around.It was important that this app ran smoothly on lower end devices, taking into consideration that the younger user base typically engage with handed down technologies.
Additionally, the young demographic shaped the entire UX, not just in terms of traditional considerations regarding on-screen elements, but the physical practicalities of small hands on devices of varying size and weight.