Our Approach: Funderstanding's unique use of Empathic Design

At Funderstanding, one of our greatest strengths is our use of empathic design techniques in our research and observation of children. Our goal is to use this research to enable our clients to improve the products they make for kids. By observing kids in their own environments, at school and at home, both alone and in their interactions with others, we receive profound and unique insights into their behaviors which we believe will help clients understand them better.

Our approach follows a standard procedure employed by anthropologists. The observation of the students and the capturing of this data are at the forefront of our technique. We employ videographers to tape children of different age groups, in a variety of natural environments. These include school, work, student-led tours of their homes, and a "day in the life" of the student. We use our staff's extensive background in education, educational design, anthropology and psychology to analyze the data and reflect, in-depth, on the findings. We then synthesize a set of clearly stated problems that stem from our reflections and collaboratively brainstorm for potential solutions. These solutions are instrumental in designing meaningful, high-impact design improvements.

What can we learn from observing the way children approach an activity? What sorts of activities are they drawn to, and how do they move from one to the next? Is their ability to handle complexity beyond what the adult presenter has assumed? Can we make their activities more worthwhile by adding or subtracting certain elements or by upgrading or downgrading the level of materials presented? By answering these questions, we can provide a product that is fundamentally geared toward the fulfillment of a child's needs and goals and, at the same time, increase the child's enjoyment. The net result is we enhance the likelihood of a positive experience for the child, which enhances our client's brand at the same time.

By effectively using the results of our empathic design driven research we are able to design a product that can better meet the needs (both perceived and unrealized) of students, parents and our clients.