What was my role within Nadiya?
Whilst the Nadiya app had received some great feedback from users we also had received feedback during some of our codesign sessions with Ukrainian parents and children that there was a lot of stigma around mental health in Ukraine which was putting people off using the app. This is where I took on the role of trying to make the app feel less like a therapy tool and slightly more like a game, specifically for one of the exercises in our app - The Charm of Sanctuary. I wanted to help create an exercise that would help bridge the gap in connection between parents and children through imagination play, after all parents know how to be play and act like a child but children don't know how to play and act like adults.
What does The Charm of Sanctuary do?
I wanted to create a more physical and less digital experience within the app, encouraging users to simply gain a set of instructions from the app and put it into action out with the app. After gaining user feedback that the app felt too therapeutic I tried to switch the direction of the game mechanic to a more imaginative and playful experience.
The parent and child would be prompted to imagine their safe space (be it real or imaginary) and from that prompt a discussion between parent and child explaining what their safe space looks like, who would live there and what kind of things you would keep there. After this discussion has taken place it's time to set the screen aside and build their safe spaces using whatever materials they have around them.
Whilst the child is building their safe space the parents/carers have the option to ask the child a series of questions that may help reveal some of the deeper meanings and feelings behind their safe space, but this step is entirely optional as it can obviously be a very sensitive issue.
Finally the parent is able to photograph the child's safe space which will implement the photo into the app and create a safe new place for all the characters in the app to live!
Some of my illustration work within Nadiya
