Over the past year, the conversations around diversity in children’s media have reached a crescendo. Players and consumers have set forth a clear challenge to industries ranging from tech to publishing:

Create media and content that inspires and reflects the diverse learners—children and families—who are consuming your content.

According to Common Sense Media, 75% of all American children have access to some kind of mobile smart device and as research from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center shows, lower-income, Hispanic, and African American children consume far more media than their middle-class and white counterparts. As creators of children’s digital content, now more than ever, we have an opportunity through digital media to reach an even greater and more diverse audience than ever before. With that opportunity comes an obligation to create content that can serve as “windows, mirrors, and sliding doors” for this audience.

Exactly a year ago, we met at a weekend conference for creators of children’s interactive media. We were part of a small handful of non-white content creators in an audience of over 100 people. Because we were seated at the same table, we began talking and discovered that we had quite a bit in common. Not the least of which was that, having both grown up in the US as South Asian kids without many reflections of ourselves in the books and TV that we consumed, both of us had founded independent app development companies that are committed to addressing the diversity gap in children’s digital media.

Our conversations about the diversity gap did not end that weekend. We shared a desire to push the industry forward toward a larger commitment to diversity. Back at our respective desks, we set about searching online and in our own networks to identify initiatives around creating diverse children’s media. What we learned prompted our next steps. Pockets of conversations were happening in different industries–amongst concerned creatives, developers, publishers, marketplace shapers, educators, media mentors, and researchers. However these conversations were happening in silos and perhaps not in a coordinated public fashion.

After spending a few months talking to various players who were thinking about and working on this topic in the children’s media, a core group of us came together and Diversity in Apps (DIA) was born.  Diversity in Apps is a grassroots attempt to walk the diversity talk by going beyond the buzzwords that surround diversity (inclusiveness, equity, access, multicultural, etc.) and undertaking pragmatic actions to support the creation of diverse and inclusive children’s digital media products through research, best practices, and collaboration.

At our kickoff event on November 12, 2015, we joined forces with Children’s Media Association in New York and hosted a panel discussion, entitled “We (Also) Need Diverse Apps” (#CMADiversityinApps; see the top tweets from the event at the bottom of this post).

Diversity in Apps Panel Discussion 11/12/2015 from DIApps

Our featured panelists included:

• Liza Conrad, Head of Community at HopScotch,
• David Grandison Jr., Startup Entrepreneur and previously an executive producer at BrainPop,
• Darrell Robertson, Media Mentor and Branch Manager of Carroll County (MD) Public Library,
• Kika Gilbert, Head of Community at TinyBop,
• Dr. Kevin Clark, professor in the Learning Technologies Division of the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University, and
• Amy Kraft, panel moderator and co-founder of Monkey Bar Collective.

The evening began with a conversation around defining diversity. Our favorite definition came from Kevin Clark who said, “Diversity comes in two parts. Diversity is about the the individual numbers in terms of who is represented. On the flip side, it is about inclusion, how the individual numbers come together to create something impactful.”

Over the course of the evening, panelists shared actionable and pragmatic tips on how to create content that truly is diverse. They included:

1. Creating diverse content is not just about throwing some “diversity sauce” on a product in the last stage of production. Plan for the time and the budget to create inclusive content that is diverse and represents a range of learning styles, cultures, ethnicities. Do it from the beginning, plan it in the schedule, and make sure it happens.
2. Engage with communities. By shelving our own biases and preconceived notions and truly listening to and engaging with one’s audience and “subject” will yield more authentic and organically diverse products.
3. Build diverse creative teams. Make it a priority in your hiring decisions. That often means going outside of the network you are familiar with when it comes to hiring for your team. Doing this ensures new perspectives on your content but also now connects you to a network you were not previously aware of.
4. Don’t hide your problems. Be transparent about the things you learn. If you make a mistake and own up to it, consumers will respect it.
5. Teams should learn and understand stereotypes and implicit bias. Have open discussions internally so that content isn’t offensive.
6. When creating diverse characters, focus on creating diverse experiences that reflect a range of geographies, economies, abilities, and the like.
7. When using stock photography, take a close look at who is represented. Is it truly diverse?
8. Think about UX experience of different audiences, including those with access and connectivity and those without.

The event was a great way to kick off the Diversity in Apps movement, but we are really at the start of our journey. What clearly emerged from the panel discussion was that when it comes to children’s media, the question on the table is not “Has diversity has lost its meaning?”; the question is “How can diversity continue to have meaning?”

Our next step as a coalition is to create a “Diversity Bechdel test,” a type of rubric that content creators and consumers can use to meet benchmarks and ensure that the product they are creating or consuming is diverse. This in turn will empower consumers to hold our industry accountable. If you are interested in being a part of this ongoing effort or leading in a bigger way, please visit our site, diversityinapps.com and join us.

Kabir Seth (co-founder Storied Myth) are Sandhya Nankani (founder, Literary Safari) are founding members of Diversity in Apps. Diversity in Apps is an interdisciplinary coalition committed to discuss the state of diversity in the children’s media industry, best practices, and the connection between child development and access to diverse and inclusive content. Join us at Facebook, Twitter, or sign-up for our mailing list.

#cmadiversityinapps Tweets

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Diverse Families and Media co-uthors Sinem Siyahhan, Amber Levinson, Katie Headrick Taylor, and Briana Pressey
Photo by Lori Takeuchi

Last week we released Diverse Families and Media: Using Research to Inspire Design, at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The report draws from research conducted by the Families and Media consortium around media use in predominantly Latino families living in New York/New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Chicago. This casebook and design guide aims to provide insight on family media use, prompts for thoughtful discussion, and inspiration for the design of products and programs for children and families. The launch event was a joint effort between the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Stanford’s brand new TELOS (Technology for Equity in Learning Opportunities) initiative, and Digital Promise.

About 100 researchers, designers, practitioners, and media producers were invited to the Center for Education Research at Stanford for two panels, including representatives from organizations such as Peekapak, Redwood City School District, EdSurge, PBS Kids, and Khan Academy. Brigid Barron, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and one of the Families and Media Project’s principal investigators, welcomed participants with a short talk on designing high quality content at the intersection of technology, equity, and learning.

Designing for Diverse Families
Image: Nevada Lane

The first panel, “Designing for Diverse Families,” was moderated by the Cooney Center’s Michael Levine and featured Kevin Clark (George Mason University), Claudia Haines (Association for Library Service to Children), and Aaron Morris (PBS KIDS Digital). One main takeaway of this panel was a call for more diversity among the creators of content as well as involving the target audiences as the content is created. Kevin Clark and Aaron Morris especially emphasized the importance of diverse creators of media to help shape conversations around designingcontent. Involving the users early on in the design process is also of utmost importance, as they can provide unique and personal perspectives to mold the design process in more effective and relatable ways. Claudia Haines also highlighted the significance of libraries as sites for media mentorship and as hubs of opportunities for early literacy. The panelists closed with suggestions for investments, which included a media mentor national bus tour, more family engagement efforts, and community-based innovation labs.

Technology for Bridging Home and School
Image: Nevada Lane

The second panel, “Opportunities to Support Home-School Connections Using Technology,” was moderated by Karen Cator of Digital Promise and featured panelists Carmen Gonzalez (University of Washington), Eric Cuentos (Mission Graduates), and Margaret Caspe Klein (Harvard Family Research Project). The panelists stressed the importance of considering the diversity within Latino families (i.e., country of origin, socioeconomic status, language) in design, and also gave some insights on different uses of media in Latino families. For instance, Carmen Gonzalez outlined the work that she and colleague Vikki Katz (Rutgers University) conducted with Mexican-origin families as part of the Families and Media Project. In their studies in Chula Vista, CA, Sunnyside, AZ, and Denver, CO, they found that children often act as “brokers” for their immigrant parents, performing tasks such as translating documents, and sometimes using digital media to do so. Margaret Caspe Klein also insisted that equity does not lie only in access to technology, but in families having the skills and knowledge to implement that technology into their homes and lives in meaningful ways. Eric Cuentos believes that the takeaway for designers should be to create low-tech, high-touch products for families.

(Re)Imagining Learning Opportunities for Underserved Families
Image: Nevada Lane

After the panels, about 50 participants were invited to move to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design for a design workshop utilizing the Diverse Families and Media casebook. Amber Levinson was very systematic in creating working groups prior to the workshop, ensuring that each team allowed for opportunities to gain perspectives across research, industry, and practice. One sample group might contain practitioners from LitLab or San Francisco United School District, researchers from Stanford or Harvard, and industry leaders from Myon or Tales2Go. Each team also had a design coach to lead them through the design-thinking process, which was new to several participants.

The d.school design process usually consists of five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. However, for the purposes of the design guide and workshop, the authors simplified this process to empathize, imagine, and create.  Workshop teams were assigned to one of two cases: “designing for family language learning,” or “designing for the whole family by connecting to heritage culture.” For the empathy phase, team members read carefully through each case, pulling out facts about the families, their interests, values, and activities. Next, teams moved into the imagine phase, using “how might we” as a prompt to address the families’ possible needs. For example, “How might we use Jessica’s interest in science experiments as a tool for language learning?” From the “how might we” statements, participants had twenty minutes to create a prototype of a tool to address a possible family need.

Though the time allotted for the prototype phase was very short, participants seemed excited to pull their ideas together quickly, using improvisation, cardboard, paper, foil, and anything else they could find around the room. Finally teams were given the chance to present their programs and products based on their cases. Two teams designed programs to be implemented in libraries. The first was a six week dual-language, library-based program in which family members create a digital story of their family and their heritage, receiving instruction and digital literacy training along the way. The second group came up with a similar idea in which families create print and digital books about their family history and heritage, but leave the dual-language books in a designated physical space at the library for other families to read. This designated section has a trained media mentor as well as curated parent resources. A third group designed a fun dual-language unboxing family challenge, which they acted out for the rest of the participants. A family using this product would receive a package in the mail with particular instructions in both English and Spanish. For example, “Your challenge is to cook a family recipe.” The challenge also pinpoints roles that family members can choose from, such as chef, videographer, English recipe writer, and Spanish recipe writer. This allows each family member to feel like they have an important role in the process.

To debrief, Amber Levinson and Maryanna Rogers asked participants what they liked and learned from the event. Several participants said they greatly enjoyed the design process, and hoped to find ways to bring design thinking back to the work that they do at their own organizations. Others liked the cross-sector nature of their work groups, which offered diverse perspectives when interpreting the cases and coming up with designs. A sentiment that many seemed to have was the desire to stay in contact with one another, and continue the conversations that emerged throughout the day.

Similar to the debrief from the “Designing Media for Underserved Families” event last January, participants also expressed the value of ethnographic research and its potential to prompt thoughtful designs for underserved and diverse families. In interviews with media producers and designers to prepare Diverse Families and Media, some expressed the difficulty to consider how to design for anyone other than their “mainstream” target audience, due to time, budget, and a lack of knowledge. We hope that this casebook and design guide, based on ethnographic research, can serve as a step toward providing designers, producers, and practitioners with the inspiration and information they need to begin to meaningfully design with consideration for a diverse array of families.

Now, it’s your turn! Please download the report and use it as a basis for discussion, to inspire design with your team, or for personal reflection on your work.