Design and evaluation of a prototype of a children’s educational application during and for the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

Covid-19 pandemic affected virtually every sector of life, due to the need to avoid agglomerations and maintaining social isolation. In education, teaching-learning processes have changed drastically and now are in a state of fast transformation. Schools all around the world were closed and teachers and students had to migrate to online environments. In this paper, we present a whole design process of conceiving an educational mobile application that explores the students' houses as a source of knowledge through gamification and augmented reality. Field studies such as online surveys and user diaries were employed and resulted into the creation of eleven personas representing teachers, parents, and students. After a brainstorming session and the definition of the basic requirements, a low-fidelity prototype was created and evaluated by ten students aged 6 to 11 years old from both public and private schools. The results of the evaluation pointed to the potential of the app in keeping children motivated and interested in learning while at home. We highlight the challenges and lessons learned in doing user research involving kids during a pandemic.