Wonder Yard

An innovative outdoor toy. Fostering creativity and physical activity in young adventurers.

Designed with:

Rhino

Role:

Product Designer

Date:

Feb 2024 - Jun 2024

Highlights:

interactive elements to captivate young minds.
Constructed with child-friendly, weather-resistant materials.
Encourages physical activity, problem-solving, and imaginative play.

Tailored to the needs and interests of children aged 5-11.
Designed with sustainability in mind, minimizing environmental impact.

Main Challenges:

Safety: Ensuring equipment is safe for children by redesigning edges, handles, and climbing structures to prevent falls and injuries.
Functionality: Adding purposeful and engaging features to enhance play value, such as interactive elements and improved climbing goals.
Space Optimization: Creating designs that fit various backyard sizes while remaining multifunctional.
Sustainability: Using durable, eco-friendly materials to align with environmental goals.
User Feedback: Integrating suggestions to address concerns about safety, activity variety, and user engagement.

Process:

Research and Understanding: Conducted interviews with children and parents to identify their needs, preferences, and concerns regarding outdoor play. Observations at playgrounds provided insights into children's play behaviors and safety challenges, helping to define user requirements.
Prototyping and User Testing: Developed prototypes based on research insights, incorporating features like climbing frames, slides, and swings. Tested these designs with children and parents, collecting feedback on usability, engagement, and safety.
Refinement and Finalization: Addressed feedback by improving safety features, enhancing functionality, and adding engaging, interactive elements. The final design emphasized creativity, sustainability, and adaptability for various play settings, ensuring a user-friendly and impactful product.

user interviews and observations:

The user interviews and observations explored the needs and behaviors of children and parents during outdoor play. Interviews provided insights into children’s preferences for fun and challenging activities, while parents highlighted safety and usability concerns. Observing children’s play at playgrounds revealed how they interact with toys and adapt them creatively, as well as potential safety risks. These insights informed the design of engaging, safe, and multifunctional outdoor toys.

Children:

Mood and personality

What do you like to play outside of home?

Why do you like these activities?

Parents:

How many times a week do you usually take your children to the park to play?

What features do you consider if you want to buy outdoor toys?

What are your children's favorite activities?

specific challenges and safety considerations with playgrounds?

Soft floor, so children don’t hurt if they run or fall down
Unsharp edges
Soft playing tools
Having an overview of the playground to watch the children
More safe toys for younger children
Worried about falling from mini Ferris wheels, climbing nets, and climbing walls

How do you typically involve yourself in your children's outdoor play time?

Being around
Swing them
Play on the other side of the seesaw when they are alone
Catch them when they are playing with slides
Help them if they need
Jumping on trampoline

Persona:

The personas were developed to represent key user groups—children and parents—based on insights from interviews and observations. For children, the focus was on their preferences for active, imaginative play and their interactions with toys, highlighting their need for fun, safety, and challenges. For parents, the personas emphasized their concerns about safety, durability, and ease of use, alongside their desire for enriching outdoor experiences for their children. These personas guided the design to balance playfulness, functionality, and parental priorities.

problem statement & goal statement:

The problem statement identifies the challenges faced by both children and parents in accessing safe, engaging, and functional outdoor play equipment. It highlights the gaps in existing products, such as limited creativity, safety concerns, and usability issues.

The goal statement outlines the vision for the project, focusing on creating a multifunctional and sustainable outdoor toy. It aims to provide children with fun and creative play opportunities while ensuring parents' priorities for safety, durability, and ease of use are fully met. Together, these statements guide the development of a solution that balances the needs of both personas.

Parents

Problem Statement:
Parents struggle to find outdoor toys that balance safety, durability, and functionality also being suitable for their children’s needs. Concerns about safety hazards, ease of use, and long-term value often make it challenging to choose the right product.

Goal Statement:
To create an outdoor toy that prioritizes safety, durability, and ease of use while offering features that promote active and creative play for children, giving parents peace of mind.

Children

Problem Statement:
Children often lack access to outdoor toys that are both fun and challenging. Many existing options fail to spark their creativity, limit opportunities for imaginative play, or pose safety risks during use, making it difficult for them to fully enjoy outdoor activities.

Goal Statement:
To design a multifunctional outdoor toy that provides engaging, creative, and safe play experiences, encouraging children to be active, curious, and imaginative.

Customer Journey Map:

The Customer Journey Map illustrates the experiences of children and parents as they interact with outdoor toys, from the initial recognition of their needs to the post-purchase phase. For parents, the journey highlights their search for safe, durable, and engaging toys, addressing concerns such as usability and sustainability. For children, it captures their excitement and challenges during play, emphasizing the importance of creativity, safety, and enjoyment. This map provides valuable insights into the touchpoints, pain points, and opportunities to enhance the overall experience for both personas.

Brainstorming:

The brainstorming phase was a key step in generating innovative ideas for the outdoor toy design. Building on insights from user research, this phase focused on exploring diverse concepts to meet the needs of both children and parents. Ideas revolved around creating a toy that is multifunctional, safe, and engaging, with features that encourage creativity and physical activity. By combining creative thinking with the brand’s design principles, brainstorming provided a foundation for developing unique and user-centered prototypes.

Sketching:

The sketching part translated ideas from brainstorming into visual concepts, bringing the initial designs for the outdoor toy to life. Inspired by user insights, the sketches explored various forms and features to create a multifunctional, safe, and engaging toy. By experimenting with different shapes, structures, and layouts, this phase aimed to ensure the designs aligned with the needs of children and parents while maintaining the brand’s design DNA. These sketches served as the blueprint for developing and refining prototypes.

First Idea:

The first prototype focused on creating a multifunctional playset that integrates slides, swings, and climbing frames. Designed with safety and sustainability in mind, it features durable materials like HDPE and steel. The concept emphasized engaging children through creative challenges, such as climbing nets and innovative slide designs. This prototype laid the foundation for feedback and improvements, addressing both fun and functionality.

For the slide, I used thick sheets of HDPE and connected them to the steel frame using rope and steel rings. In this design we use less plastic and children can climb the slide from the corners.
The swing is designed for two people and has a small sheet of HDPE in the middle for seating. The steel frame of the swing is covered with rope for aesthetic and convenience.

In the climbing part, I made two climbing nets and a climbing frame above one of the nets. So if kids fall down while playing, it's not dangerous.
In this part I wanted to make a challenging frame for climbing so I put these plastic (HDPE) sheets and designed them in such a way that children can put their feet there and can hold themselves with their hands.

Second Idea:

The second prototype introduced new climbing frame designs and interactive features to enhance the play experience. By incorporating unique elements like wiggle discs and rope rings, this concept aimed to challenge children physically and spark curiosity. Compact and adaptable for various spaces, the second prototype emphasized creativity, variety, and active engagement while addressing user feedback from the first iteration.

Here I tried to make some new shapes for the climbing frames that can be more challenging for kids. In these climbing frames, kids can start to climb on both sides.
I put a climbing net and a rotated frame kids can use it for climbing or slipping down like firemen.

Two wiggle discs have different heights and two rope rings between them. so the challenge here is starting from the low-height wiggle using the rope and then standing on the higher wiggle.

concept testing:

The concept testing evaluated the initial prototypes with users, including children, parents, and other stakeholders, to gather valuable feedback. This phase focused on assessing the designs' safety, functionality, and engagement levels while identifying areas for improvement. By observing interactions and collecting user opinions, concept testing provided critical insights to refine the prototypes and ensure they align with the needs and expectations of the target audience.

First concept:

Pros:

Verity of activities
More fun
The slide is the best part
Better for younger children
Using a climbing net instead of steps for going up to use the slide is so fun
It’s also interesting for parents to use it

Suggestions:

Consider more safety
Arouse more curiosity
Make the rounded climbing net like circle (360 degrees)

Second concept:

Pros:

More consistent
Kids are more active in this concept
Small and fits everywhere
More creative
Diffrenet types of climbing

Number of votes: 9 out of 20
3 Children
3 Unmarried 18-41
3 Parents 40 - 50
80% of men liked this one

Cons:

The green plastic sheets are not safe for climbing and there is no purpose in doing.
There is no place on the top of the slide for sitting and being stable before slipping.
It needs a big space
It has less mobility for children and makes them lazy.
Playing with swing and slide is old fashion and it has no creativity.
In the rounded climbing net children may fall and their heads may hit the bar.
make feel more dangerous

Number of votes: 11 out of 20
1 Children
4 Unmarried 24-31
6 Parents 40 - 58
80% of women liked this one

Cons:

Needs more variety of activities
The activities are monotonous
Kids just follow one goal (they just climb)

Suggestions:

Put some springs in the button part of the wiggles.
Make the wiggles like swings
Change one of the climbing frames to the climbing chains or climbing wall

Final Result:

The final concept represents the culmination of user insights, testing, and iterative improvements. Designed to be safe, multifunctional, and engaging, it incorporates features like climbing frames, slides, and interactive elements that spark creativity and physical activity. The final design addresses the priorities of both children and parents, offering a durable and sustainable solution that fosters fun and imaginative play while ensuring ease of use and peace of mind. This concept embodies the balance between functionality, aesthetics, and user satisfaction.

The edges of the slide were rough and posed a risk of injury to children, so I covered them with a durable plastic layer to ensure they were smoother and safer to touch.

The top of the slide didn’t have a proper area for children to sit, so I added a small, sturdy seating platform to give them a safe and comfortable place to sit and prepare before sliding.

The handles of the slide had sharp edges, which could hurt children, so I reshaped them into smooth, rounded curves to make them both safer and easier to hold.

Enhancing the connection parts for the swing to ensure they are more secure, durable, and safe for regular use by children.

Functionality:

Upgrading the climbing wall by attaching smooth, sturdy plastic sheets over the surface, making it easier and more comfortable for children to climb.

Number of votes: 11 out of 20
1 Children
4 Unmarried 24-31
6 Parents 40 - 58
80% of women liked this one

Improvements:

Safety:

Details:

Strengthening the ropes and reinforcing the connections in the climbing net to improve safety, durability, and ease of use for children.

In the previous design, children had no goal for climbing the frame. So, I put a spinning circle on the top of the frame. This spinning circle has many small, transparent, colorful circles that make colorful shadows with sunshine. So, children can reach the spinning circle after climbing and spin it to move the shadows on the ground.