NanoSprout — Jacqueline O'Connor

NanoSprout – Smart media use in the digital age
  
   NanoSprout is a conceptual platform designed to help parents make informed decisions about the apps their young children use. It combines expert reviews with community feedback to support mindful media choices.

CHALLENGE

Parents often feel overwhelmed by the pace of digital innovation and struggle to assess which apps are truly appropriate for their children.

SOLUTION

NanoSprout offers a searchable library of expert-reviewed children’s apps, paired with community insights. The goal: to create a safer, more intentional digital environment for kids.

MY ROLE
UX/Product Designer

NOTE
NanoSprout is a conceptual UX project informed by public research and observational insights. It is not affiliated with or representative of any existing organization, product, or platform.

Design goals

NanoSprout aims to support parents in making thoughtful, informed decisions about the digital experiences they introduce to their children. To achieve this, the project focused on three core goals.

Key goals:

1. Simplify app evaluation: Provide a clear, accessible tool that helps parents quickly assess whether an app is developmentally appropriate and aligned with their values.

2. Foster community connection: Create a space where parents can exchange reviews, advice, and personal experiences—building trust through shared insight.

3. Enable remote monitoring: Develop a mobile feature that allows parents to track and manage their child’s tech activity, especially helpful for those frequently on the go.

Competitive analysis

Before beginning research, I explored existing solutions addressing parental guidance in children’s app use. Jugend Schutz, a German agency, currently sponsors two initiatives in this space, but both remain early-stage and lack key features needed for practical, everyday use.

Understanding the kids app market

To understand why parents struggle to find appropriate apps, I analyzed the current landscape. The kids app market is still emerging and lacks clear categorization. Children’s apps are scattered across gaming, entertainment, education, and tech, without a defined segment of their own.

Key findings:

1. Lack of structure: Kids apps are not treated as a distinct category and are instead dispersed across multiple industries, making discovery difficult for parents.

2. Minimal regulation: Developers can label apps as “educational” without oversight, leading to inconsistent quality and misleading claims.

Björn Jeffery’s The Kids App Market, Part 1 provided valuable context that helped shape early design decisions.

  Understanding the problem
  
   I gathered and organized data about media use by children ages zero to eight. The purpose was to get a better understanding of the attitudes and behaviors that children and parents have surrounding technology and media. Listed below are statistics that stood out early in the research phase.

boy-using-digital-tablet-while-sitting-on-bench-QU2FXRS.jpg

95% of families with kids age eight and under now have smartphones
and 42% of children age eight and under own their own tablet device.

Common Sense Media, 2017.

concentrated-little-girl-child-indoors-using-PRADPLJ.jpg

Kids age eight and under spend an average of two hours and nineteen minutes a day in front of screens. 35% of that time is spent on mobile devices.

Common Sense Media, 2017.

Parents are concerned about the amount of violence, sexual content, and advertising in media, but they are optimistic about the use of media for learning and supporting creativity.

Common Sense Media, 2017.

Opportunities with screen time

OPPORTUNITY #1

Access to knowledge
Technology and media allow children to easily access information and gain knowledge. Not only for educational purposes but also to feed their interests, imagination and creativity.

OPPORTUNITY #2

Creativity
Tablets offer children a new way to create, complete with such features that might include using a paintbrush, camera, microphone or an "undo" option that encourages experimentation.

OPPORTUNITY #3

Cognitive skills
According to Psychology Today, "Touchscreens offer an intuitive interface which enable toddlers to gain intense contingent sensory stimulation during a peak period of neural development and at an age when the relatively immature motor and linguistic systems have previously limited cognitive stimulation."

OPPORTUNITY #4

Personalized learning experience
Apps like Khan Academy Kids provide a digital library of books, activities and games that give children an adaptive learning path, allowing them to learn at their own pace. They can also read books on their own or follow along with recorded audio narration.

Challenges with screen time

CHALLENGE #1

Not all screens are equal
Tablets offer children a far more interactive experience than sitting in front of a television. Similarly, not all apps are equally beneficial to children across age, ability levels, socioeconomic level, and learning styles.

CHALLENGE #2

Confused parents
Currently, the term “educational” is a free-for-all label used by kids app developers, making it extremely difficult for parents to distinguish which apps are appropriate for their children. Parents are left confused and often have to assess these apps for themselves.

CHALLENGE #3

Inappropriate content
A recent study led by researchers at the University of Michigan found that apps for preschoolers are flooded with manipulative ads, luring young children to unknowingly make purchases and watch potentially inappropriate ads. In-app advertisements can be extremely disruptive and overwhelm the child’s playing experience, which is unfair to children and deceptive to parents who think they’re downloading games that are educational.

CHALLENGE #4

Childhood obesity
Many studies have found relationships between screen time and increased risks of obesity. This is likely because of poor eating and sleeping habits associated with excessive screen exposure. Additionally, the more time a child spends sitting in front of a screen amounts to less physical play-time.

Student surveys
  
 A survey with 44 elementary students was conducted to better understand their attitudes and behaviors towards technology.

Findings from survey data:

1. 98% of respondents own some form of technology. 40% of these respondents also own a cell phone.

2. 70% of respondents feel that their technology time should not be limited.

3. 80% of respondents reported spending less than five hours on technology per day. The remaining 20% reported spending five to ten hours per day.

Generally, elementary children feel positive about technology but feel that their parents should be more flexible with their screen time.

Interviews
  
Using data from the surveys and knowledge from my research, I prepared a series of questions to ask selected participants. Below are participant characteristics and takeaways.

Interview 1.
Jade (Parent, 35), who has frequent arguments over the technology and media habits with her two sons who are in elementary school. She questions the credibility of the apps her children download on their tablets.  

Interview 2.
Brice (Child, 7), who thinks technology is great and wishes he could have more freedom when it comes to his technology time, which is limited to 90 minutes per day.

Interview 3. 
Melissa (Teacher, 29), who teaches first grade and incorporates digital technology into her lesson plans. She feels that media and technology have the potential to peak her student's interest in learning. Although, she admits that children can easily get distracted by their screens.  

Interview 4.

Elena (Expert in Child Psychology, 39), who works at local elementary school and has experience working with parents struggling to manage screen time for their children. She believes that parents need to take an active role in their children's digital activities and that they should make an effort to research whatever apps their children are downloading.

Building empathy 
  
 I used survey and interview data to define two key user profiles: Jade (Parent, 35) and Brice (Child, 7), guiding design priorities through user-centered insight.

Brainstorming solutions

After identifying Jade and Brice’s priorities, I began exploring solutions with the greatest impact for both. The ideal outcome would be two distinct interfaces tailored to each audience’s goals.

  1.
  
    App review website: Allows parents to search for specific apps and access reports with expert and community-based reviews. Parents can use this platform to find detailed insights on a particular app or browse personalized recommendations.
  
  2.
  
    iMessage-integrated app: Enables parents to monitor their child’s tech activity and communicate directly within the app.
  
  Note:
  
    Due to time constraints, I chose to focus on the first interface—the website.

Storyboarding 
  
 I created a storyboard to visualize the basic steps in Jade’s journey at quick glance. The goal of this exercise was to illustrate the existing problem and to establish a clear understanding of how the website might solve those problems.

BRAND IDENTITY

Creating a name and logo

"Nano" is a tech term, often referenced in the context of digital technology. It's also a number symbolizing something that's very small, such as young children. "Sprout" means to grow, such as from a plant to a seed or a child to young adult.

The name NanoSprout represents the brand's mission to help young children grow up in the digital age.

STRUCTURE AND FLOW

Website wireframes

FINAL DELIVERABLES

Polished website design

What I Learned

  1.
  
    Research goes beyond search: I discovered that meaningful insights came from direct conversations and observations, not just online searches—with children, parents, and professionals.
  
  2.
  
    Share early, save effort: I sought feedback on polished deliverables, but sharing rough sketches sooner would have streamlined my process and reduced rework.
  
  3.
  
    Less is more: Parents responded best to simple, straightforward layouts. I learned that usefulness and clarity matter more than feature overload.

NanoSprout – Smart media use in the digital age

95% of families with kids age eight and under now have smartphones and 42% of children age eight and under own their own tablet device.

Kids age eight and under spend an average of two hours and nineteen minutes a day in front of screens. 35% of that time is spent on mobile devices.

Parents are concerned about the amount of violence, sexual content, and advertising in media, but they are optimistic about the use of media for learning and supporting creativity.

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