Finalist: Expressing
Interaction Awards 2021
India boasts 1.8 million K-12 schools and a student base of 321 million! Since the implementation of Covid-19 restrictions, students have been asked to stay home and advised online or distance learning indefinitely. As a result, prolonged isolation, decrease in outdoor play times and increased screen time is expected to impact student’s emotional well-being. Formal education in the new normal also presents novel challenges for teachers as it is hard to discern emotions and emotive feedback virtually.
We see an immense potential in designing a platform that enables students to express emotional and academic challenges with their teachers, even while connecting virtually. Our concept addresses the pressing need for teachers and parents to recognise and empathise with students’ emotions and guide them in these unprecedented times.
Context
Journio is a digital platform that can improve Emotional Intelligence (EI) in school-going children between 5-12 years. The platform is designed for 3 stakeholders –
- Students – can capture moods, emotions and participate in feedback loops as needed.
- Teachers – can track and analyse emotions of students as well as address their emerging issues with insight
- Parents – can not only stay abreast of the emotional and learning aspects of their children., but can also interact with teachers
Impact
While Journio is a concept to test and validate our findings further, it is backed with research findings and fuelled by the passion to widen perspectives on conventional approach to the educational experience. Journio prescribes to empathy, communication and holistic development of students at its core. It demonstrates the immense potential of ‘Interaction Design’ in driving positive and life-altering changes at the personal and societal levels alike.
Craft
We started with in-depth desk research to understand the existing literature on EI, global and domestic efforts towards making EI tools available to students, regional statistics on children’s well-being and understanding the current Indian education system. We then pursued a pan-India primary research with 15 teachers, parents and students, to test the hypothesis – ‘students aged 5-12 years need to be guided in learning to identify and bring positive shifts in emotions.
The insights derived enabled us to create a platform that could cater to a diverse range of students, teachers and parents with different levels of tech literacy and comfort. Thus lucidity, intuition, playfulness and collaboration became the core tenets of our UX strategy.
