Using Persuasive Principles in Designing Educational Products for Children (Case Study: Teaching How to Raise Plants)

During everyday life, many situations occur in which design has changed the way of our thinking. Artifacts and environments can be designed in a way to persuade people to perform a specific action in a specific situation. Education plays a key role in societies’ improvement. One of the age periods which is often neglected is childhood. Many behavioral characteristics are influenced by experiences of these first years. In this period, environment plays an essential role in learning and learning through action. At present time due to the changes in people’s lifestyle, the nature presence in living and learning places become a priority in the field of education for children. Children today do not have access to the natural world. They live in urban areas which rarely provide the experience of nature. The growing emergence of computer games in children’s lives leads to decreasing their attention to the natural environments. On the other hand taking care of a plant is mostly considered as an adults’ duty. Gardening even on a very small scale can have numerous benefits for child’s development. In children’s early education, some new trends are emerging. For instance play for learning in early childhood has become a valid approach which focuses on playful activity. Play and games can be used as a persuasive tool for child’s education. Studying existing products by focus on nurturing plant showed that many factors including lack of age appropriate educational elements are considered as obstacles in encouraging them through the process of caring for plants. In this regard, presented research aims at teaching children how to take care of plants by using persuasive design tools. Because of its educational programs, Mofid preschool located in Sattar Khan area in Tehran city is selected and studied as a case study. Analytical investigation is started from December 2015 to the beginning of May 2016 with an average of three days per week by designers’ presence in different educational spaces of Mofid preschool. A sum of 46 students is studied in this research. Both direct and indirect observation techniques are used according to the involved students. This study is based on a simultaneous practical-qualitative research methodology and persuasive design principles. The design principles are extracted of eight-step design methodology proposed by B.J. Fogg. The user’s observation shows that including elements of guiding through nurturing plant will increase the children’s interest in this activity. Playful and child-friendly elements are considered as appropriate persuasive tools which is the main purpose of this research. The current research seeks to prove the hypothesis that by using persuasive factors, the quality of child’s learning in the field of nurturing plants will be improved. At the end, a playful educational pack is presented as a persuasive tool to encourage child’s participation in taking care of plants. The results extracted from prototype evaluation, educational experts’ advises and users’ opinions, indicate that using persuasive design principles promotes children’s learning skills in the field of nurturing plants.