5Rights Foundation encourages and empowers children and young people to contribute to the design of the digital services they use.
In 2016, one of the jurors from our Youth Juries suggested a personal setting that automatically turned off intrusive apps and online services at certain times of day (e.g. at night-time) and in particular places (e.g. at school). 5Rights worked with design agency Fjord, Accenture, and product manager/UX designer Rosie Higgins to create prototype called the Zone App. Since then, both Apple and Android have introduced many of the features that the young co-designers created for the Zone App. We are very proud that our young people can outsmart even Apple and Google’s best designers.
In 2017, 5Rights asked children to participate in a Hothouse at BT Labs, meaning that for the first time children were involved in the development of a new product idea right from the outset. Together with senior BT staff from engineering, marketing, design, research and user experience, they created three designs that could help children understand the commercial drivers of technology, resulting in: a campaign, a game, and the winner, an avatar that used pop-ups to share information. After three days, BT realised the many benefits, including in time, resource, and long-term customer satisfaction, from involving children in the design process.