Bridging generations: gamified approach to strengthening family communication
Innovative design solutions for fostering mutual understanding between young adults and their parents
ROLE
Project Manager
UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher
PROCESSES
Project Management
Product Design
Research
DURATION
3 months
Oct - Dec 2024
TEAM
Tia L.
Anthony T.
Ariel Z.
Ariana Z.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we help young adult children establish and maintain mutually agreed upon boundaries for communication with their transnational parents who have concerns about their safety?
SOLUTION
A 2-player, gamified communication tool where players practice healthy boundary setting by tackling scenarios focused on safety concerns through a combination of asynchronous communication and facilitated conversations.
KEY FEATURES
THE PROBLEM SPACE
The transition into nascent young adulthood is difficult for both parents and their children due to the renegotiation of boundaries.
For parents living further away from their children, boundaries are a common point of tension due to concerns for their safety.
"I have four lovely children, all now adults and left home…They are okay about keeping in touch, and sympathetic to my anxiety, but it is reaching unmanageable proportions." [Source]
"My mom is like this. It is very overwhelming to have my mom feel like this, although I know it comes from love...It was incessant, invasive, and usually caused a fight." [Source]
Additional desk research suggests that helpful parent roles fall into 3 categories during the transition to adulthood, including being a coach, cheerleader, and safety monitor. As a result, we decided to focus on the parent-child relationship when it comes to safety monitoring over long distances.
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
I learned that the tension between safety and privacy was a major contributor to communication disruption.
60-minute semi-structured interviews with young adults and parents about their current communication patterns
n = 8
1.
Transnational parents often have concerns about their young adult children’s physical and location safety.
2.
When parents and young adult children communicate about safety, the children often feel like their boundaries are not respected, leading to conflicts.
3.
Young adult children tend to compromise their boundaries in favor of easing their parents’ concerns by sharing more details about their physical and location safety.
IDEATION
Through Crazy 8s, I contributed 30 ideas to the team's collection of 150 ways that currently or could answer our design challenge.
A sample of my ideas: the speculative
A sample of my ideas: the obvious and existing solutions
150 IDEAS TO 1 IDEA
Down-selection was challenging, involving several steps.
OUTCOMES
A visual aid in a gamified format so that children and parents are incentivized to engage in difficult conversations and build trust around boundaries within a serene environment.
Technical assumptions
Boundary Bridge is sold in pairs.
The boards are synced and paired through WiFi, enabled gameplay across any distance.
KEY USER FLOWS
The goals of the gameplay are to complete a bridge and visit each other's islands.
Responding to a scenario
Each player docks their phone on the side of the game board to start/activate the gameplay.
Selecting a token
Each player inserts their token of choice into the token slot.
Building the bridge
When both players select the Green Token, 1 stone in the river will pop in place, so that your pawn may stand on it to cross the river.
Moving forward through conversation
If one or both select the Red Token, no stone is added.
During the next video call between the players, Prompts will appear on the screen as a reminder to discuss the Scenario and come to a consensus.
Skipping a scenario
There is 1 Free Pass during bridge making.
This token will only become available if players have yet to come to a consensus after 14 days of starting a scenario.
Either player may use the free pass to add the stone and move on to the next scenario.
FURTHER EXPLORATIONS & UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
To what extent can technology remedy broken relationships?
Many underlying factors can perpetuate an unhealthy relationship between individuals.
Behavior change requires motivation, ability, and prompting (Fogg Behavior Model). Our solution is one element of that equation—prompting.
How can we improve the long-term business viability?
As an intervention that is meant to be used and then abandoned, Boundary Bridge may have questionable viability in the long run for a business solution. However, there are ways to entice users to continue practicing healthy communication.
Create themed expansion packs with new scenarios tailored to specific family dynamics or cultural contexts
Explore additional editions of the game to assist communication in other types of relationships or settings, including the workplace, romantic relationships, and friendships
Players create and submit their own scenarios, increasing ownership and relevance of the game to their unique situations