Key Dates
Image Credit :
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Project Overview
Established in 1998, the ‘TLC for Kids Distraction’ Boxes Program has become one of the widest-reaching charity programs in Australia. Distraction Boxes assist in psychosocial support during painful or invasive procedures, achieving this through the diversion of a child’s attention towards a neutral focus. Research has shown these activities reduce distress, anxiety, pain, and the need for sedatives during medical procedures. Through a number of factors including behavioural changes, technological advancements, changes to the healthcare system, global events and supply chain pressure, there is now a need for distraction activities that can be accessed digitally.
Team
Flavio Argemi - Creative Director & UX+UI Designer Aled Rayner - UX+UI Designer Jon Low - Technical Director Jordan Binskin - HTML5 App Developer Justin Low - HTML5 App Developer Tiago Brito - HTML5 App Developer Brenton Cannizzaro - Project Manager Rachel Wright - Project Manager Tony Corrales - Operations Manager
Project Brief
TLC for Kids was very keen to explore testing its highly successful physical Distraction Boxes in a digital form. Through discussions with TLC for Kids, the brief focused on providing a custom developed, fully functional app ‘prototype’ that allows TLC for Kids to effectively and economically trial its Digital Distraction App concept in a real world services environment. Accordingly, the functional app prototype brief was to use leading digital design and HTML5 development technologies to deliver a high-level prototype that follows an iterative approach, allowing TLC for Kids to trial and test the prototype app in hospital and medical environments, and analyse its effectiveness in the digital medium.
Project Need
Young children going through painful or invasive medical procedures to treat serious illness are very often traumatised during these procedures. Using play activities that distract a child’s attention at the time of procedure, the child’s level of stress, anxiety and pain can be significantly reduced, bypassing the need for sedatives. The ‘TLC for Kids Distraction’ Boxes Program has been tremendously successful in distracting children’s attention during medical procedures and lessening their trauma. These are physical boxes with play activities included within them. The opportunity to create a digital version of the distraction program presents numerous benefits to medical professionals, as well as the children undergoing treatment and their families. Taking a functional prototype app approach was imperative to allow: 1. An economical investment for TLC for Kids to analyse the effectiveness of a digital version of its Distraction Box program. 2. Effective testing with key service partners in real world stakeholder scenarios. 3. An iterative digital design and development approach that is agile in its nature, allowing scope for refinements based on testing analytics and stakeholder feedback. The research findings from the functional prototype trial will assist TLC for Kids define if a digital version of the Distraction Boxes is effective, and accordingly, utilise these findings to support funding and planning for a possible native mobile application development. The HTML5 functional prototype was created to a very high level to ensure it was suitable for proper evaluation purposes and use by stakeholders.
User Experience
To deliver an outstanding user experience, 4 key components went into the app design and development. 1. Visual design that strongly utilised the TLC for Kids brand elements. Specifically the strong use of their playful characters “Splidge” and “Splodge” is evident, as is a very colourful and playful game and app environment. 2. Access to an initial “How are you feeling?” question once the app starts to connect with the child, and allow them to indicate how they are feeling at the start of a procedure. The prototype analytics record all entries made to the “How are you feeling?” activity providing useful data to TLC for Kids and medical professionals. 3. Access to a simple “Feedback Screensaver” simple animation to keep child distracted should the game they are playing finish before their procedure concludes. This animation, which delivers an alternative, and quick access mechanism to keep a child distracted during a procedure, can operate without direct interaction. This is important because it covers scenarios when a child may not be able or willing to interact with another game activity but still needs distraction. 4. Access links to the 6 individual distraction digital game activities. The 6 games developed were all based around a thirty second block that can be repeated to align with medical procedures. The activities are: Activity 1: Floating Bubble Pop Activity 2: Windmill Spin Activity 3: Tile Match Activity 4: Breathing exercise Activity 5: Bubble Wrap Pop Activity 6: Toony Tunes Xylophone
Project Marketing
As the app is a functional prototype in testing and analysis mode, there has purposely been no marketing undertaken on it by TLC for Kids. All marketing - and a strong campaign is planned - once the analysis phase is completed.
Project Privacy
The application requires no login to use, so accordingly, no personal user data is collected or obtained. Google Analytics is installed to track the following: 1. User Session length. 2. How many plays each individual Digital Distraction activity game has had. 3. Results from the “How are you feeling?” activity. 4. Geographic location usage. Non of the above data however records any direct, personal information - all user data is anonymous tracking.
Digital - Community
This category is all about helping our communities to connect and engage, from emergency services to Not for Profits to social groups, these apps and sites not may not only assist in delivery but also create efficiencies providing those at the coalface more time to do their important work whether it be fighting fires or managing the local team. It's not all serious though we're also looking for projects that work to help bring the community groups together with fun and enjoyable activities.
More Details