Babysitting as field study
I was babysitting my niece and nephew last weekend. Fascinating to see how they interact with computers. Jeremy (almost 12) comes in the door, grabs the laptop, and plunks himself down in front of the TV. Multitasks away. I invite him to join Makerra (8) and me in some craft-making. He joins us, and still brings the laptop. Mustn’t be too far from his IM, it seems.
Makerra is enthralled with Webkinz. (You should have seen the excitement of the girls at her school fair over the giant basket of Webkinz on raffle… she’s not alone!) Quite the marketing strategy: it’s a physical toy that kids will love, which comes with a code for the Webkinz website. On the site the child gets a matching virtual pet to care for. So they have to keep coming back to ensure it’s fed etc. This is cleverly entwined with some social networking — the kid’s friends can send them notes and virtual goodies within the site. The site is *so* 8-year-old girl.
One of the most interesting moments for me was when I saw Makerra go to Google (unusual in itself since it seems computer time was synonymous with Webkinz…) and type in “webkinz”. “What are you searching for?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “Webkinz was slow so I’m just restarting it.” What an interesting way to think of a search engine.
Posted: May 11th, 2007 under Computers & Tech, Marketing, Usability & HCI.
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