Educational publisher Malmberg goes digital by developing digital, educational products for primary school children to practice at home. They conducted research which found that parents found online educational games more convenient than giving instruction themselves and that materials complementing school methods were highly relevant. They developed a character-based spelling app called Familie Pluym based on insights that exercises should feel like games, visual/sound effects are important, humor reduces criticism, and matching children's skill levels increases motivation. The app was successful, receiving positive parent and teacher feedback and having thousands of downloads and millions of words created by players since its release in June 2013.

1. Educational publisher Malmberg goes digital
Cinekid Festival
Thursday October 22, 2015

2. - Business developer at Uitgeverij Malmberg
- Degree in User Experience Design
- Taught myself how to program
- Started my own company after graduating
- By coincidence came in contact with Malmberg & really liked
the plans they had to reinvent their company
Gavin Esajas?

3. Develop a concept for the consumer market that enables
children in primary education to practice at home.

4. Why exactly?

5. Tafelmonsters

6. Our initial concept + feedback from parents

7. - Parents that ask for extra practice materials get printed materials
- Subjects children experience difficulties with are: vocabulary,
multiplication tables and telling time.
- Parents giving instruction to their child is perceived as inconvenient,
online educational games not.
- Being able to practice at home with materials that complements the
methods used in school are regarded as highly relevant.
Learnings from talking with teachers

8. We enlisted the help of over a 100 children to test out digital, educational
products and focused on 3 key elements:
1. Exercises
2. Motivators
3. Visual style
Product development based on insights

9. - Exercises should feel like mini games
- Time pressure increases attention, but also causes sloppiness
- Visual effects & sound effects are important
- Humor is important
- Match skill level: frustration and boredom both cause quitting
1. Exercises

10. - Levels are essential
- Some type of reward system is important
- Competition and collaboration are both motivating
- Too many motivators can be confusing
- Really learning something is also a motivator
2. Motivators

11. - Bright colors and dynamic use of color in the background are
appealing
- Choice and variety are essential
- Clarity is important: you should be able to see in a glance what is
going on
- Humor and absurdity enhance the appeal and result in less critical
reactions
- 2D or 3D plays no role in the preference of children for a character
3. Visual style

12. To accelerate our learning, we created a character-based spelling app
with Gerrit from Taal actief.
- From ‘idea’ to ‘available in stores’ within 2 months
- Currently almost at 5.000 downloads
- Since June 2013 players created over 2.3 million words
Learning by doing

14. Quantity can lead to quality!

15. We kept a short feedback loop with our ‘test families’

16. 1. Exercises

17. 2. Motivators
Small success experiences, rewards, visual style, momentum, sounds,
animations and matching the skill level of children increases motivation.
‘Storytelling’ was chosen as our key motivator!

18. 3. Visual style

20. Hi family Pluym!

27. “My son really enjoys Familie Pluym. The drawings really speak to him
and the animations motivate him to continue and finish the exercises.”
“I heard positive things about Familie Pluym from my daughter’s
teacher. It’s really nice that your product complements the method
used in school.”
“My son thinks Familie Pluym is super and is always curious to find out
about next month’s story. I also like it and think it’s very instructive.”
“We started with Familie Pluym on the advice of our school. It looks
very nice and easy-to-use.”
Response (soft data)

28. Exercise started to exercise completed conversion rate for a subset
of our user base in the month September.
Response (hard data)

29. Don’t iterate too early, but allow yourself to explore various
different ideas and solutions.
Find your core idea first!
Refinement Exploration
Refine
from here
Many alternate
solutions explored
Best solution
is missed