Kafshdoozak

A cartoon maker application for kids

Encouraging storytelling and boosting creativity in children

OVERVIEW

Kafshdoozak is a fun and easy-to-use application for making creative stories and funny cartoons. It was one of the most popular applications for kids in Iran.

The creativity of children is boundless. Children are instinctive storytellers, and learn about themselves and the world through telling stories. Inspired by this natural ability, the Kafshdoozak team set out to build powerful tools for children to co-create and share animated stories.

Kafshdoozak is the result of collaboration between a small team of 6.

Role:

Co-Founder & CEO

Designer:

UI | UX | Character design

Timeline:

2013-2015

Methodology

Tools that were used in

different phases of the design process

Mind Mapping

Generating ideas around digital and non-digital storytelling

Various themes centered on storytelling were explored in a mind map. By looking for connections between traditional, non-digital storytelling and digital creative tools, we discovered concepts that combined the best of both worlds.

personas + Moodboard

Understanding kids' needs and discovering opportunities - for education and entertainment

Personas were created based upon our research about users (kids aged 3-12).

We visited schools to observe, talk to, and play with kids to understand what excites them and what they enjoy doing.

Creating personas helped us to understand users' needs, experiences, behaviors and goals. We considered habits, hobbies, daily activities, and desires while defining personas and creating moodboards.

Brainstorming + Co-creation Workshops

Discovering how kids tell stories through paper prototypes

Brainstorming and co-creation workshops were great tools for discovering initial ideas around storytelling.
Creative designers and kids were asked to tell their stories with the help of paper characters and backgrounds. These stories were recorded with phone cameras.

These sessions helped form ideas around how the product worked, and concepts for tools users might need.

Best Practices Analysis

Discovering complexity and tedium in competitors

The best products available in the market were analyzed to find out their strengths and weaknesses, their identity, features, and how children interact and engage with them.

This helped us define a product that would be simple, with a focus on effective tools for creating cartoons.

The visual study of competitors

Conceptual Map

Positioning our product - finding gaps in gamification

The concept map was used to visualize meaningful relationships between competitors and best practices. This helped us identify a need for a creative application that used effective gamification to elevate the user experience.

Weak

Using a conceptual map to find the gaps in the market and position our product

Objective Tree

Establishing the goals for the application: playfulness, ease of use, and a focus on kids

After testing the idea with users and experts and analyzing the market, an Objective Tree was created to list the main criteria necessary for an excellent user experience. Objectives (or goals) were expressions of the desired attributes and behaviors that the target audience wants to see in the product.

Using an Objective Tree to list the main criteria necessary for an excellent user experience.

The main criteria necessary for having an excellent user experience.

Wireframe sketches

Build to throw away!

Looking for mistakes!

Wireframe Sketching was a great opportunity to examine the different arrangements of features, different user interfaces, and styles with higher speed and lower cost.

Paper low-fi prototypes are great because:

Different design possibilities were developed faster and cheaper.

Only the best designs were presented to the world.

Subsequent repetitions reduced a risk of bad user experience

At each stage, useful parts of the design were kept, and other parts discarded.

Looking for mistakes through testing the paper prototypes with the target audience.

Design Outcome

The product: a place for co-creation

The outcome was Kafshdoozak, a mobile app with fun, effective tools for animating cartoons.

It met our early goals for encouraging creativity: enabling co-creation through storytelling.

Making cartoons provides an excellent opportunity for children, parents, and teachers to interact with each other. They can make cartoons and tell stories with the help of each other.
This is not only entertaining but also educational.

To make cartoons in Kafshdoozak, users simply choose their favorite characters and backgrounds and start recording while moving characters and speaking out loud.

Design Outcomes

How to make cartoon by Kafshdoozak

Concept 1:

Illustration Marketplace

A place to have access to a wide range of packages of characters and backgrounds.
Users can view the content of each package and purchase it.

Keeping the fun going while loading

When content is loading, engaging images are presented to users.

PACKAGE CONTENT REVIEW

Children can check and see the characters and backgrounds of each package. If they want to use some of the premium packages, they can buy the favorite one with the application’s CURRENCY.

KAFSHDOOZAK TV:

A place to share and watch cartoons

A place to watch other users' cartoons while they can share their cartoons with others.

It provides an excellent opportunity for children to express themselves and boost their self-confidence.

All cartoons are reviewed before publishing.

Playful details:
If a user is disconnected from the Internet, this page is shown to them prompt them to connect their devices.

When Kafshdoozak is receiving new cartoons from the server, children see this image.

Engagement through Weekly Events

Children can send their cartoons to Kafshdoozak each week to participate in competitions.
The titles of these weekly events are challenging and educational.

Highlighting Popular Cartoons

A place for watching high-reviewed cartoons.

Celebrating Creativity with Kafshdoozak's Choice

The cartoons that are chosen by Kafshdoozak’s experts will be displayed in this section.