The menus in Microsoft Outlook don’t exactly inspire you to write great emails. This is an unusual choice, as most of you who use software on a daily basis know. It is a big 3D world where anything could be built, but where should the kids start? Let the interface serve as some inspiration! To spark an idea that might not have been there when they opened the app. Secondly-since the app is so open ended-we could also use the interface as some scaffolding in terms of showing what could be done in the app. We wanted to avoid Photoshop-esque menus or abstract icons representing tools that may mean something for adults but nothing for kids. It serves two purposes in this case: first it needs to enable kids to do what they are intending to do, and it needs to be easy to understand. It needed to facilitate and inspire as opposed to frustrate and limit. In order to create a digital toy that enables this kind of creative freedom, we wanted to make sure that the app was not in the way of this journey. The journey is the destination, as they say. On the contrary, the ability to build freely can provide a more creative challenge as opposed to following an engineering ditto. Construction play can encompass a lot of exploring and experimenting, and doesn’t need to be a linear process with a predetermined outcome. For kids, the process of “constructing” is not necessarily structured in such an orderly fashion. First you need to decide what you want to build, then you need to plan the process, figure out how to combine techniques to get there, and then finish the project. How can we use a flat 2D touchscreen to help kids create and play with models and patterns?įrom an adult’s perspective, pure construction can often be quite linear. In this more challenging category, we have Toca Builders, which addresses construction play. Other areas are a little more abstract and take some more thinking. Some come very naturally-like creative play-where the touchscreen device gives kids super powers for their creations. Since the beginning of Toca Boca, we’ve always tried to invent new ways of playing with screens.
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