Elmo Calls iPhone App for Sesame Workshop

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Message Elmo Calls iPhone App Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street and other beloved children’s brands. Its projects bring critical lessons in literacy, numeracy, health, and wellness to children in 150 countries. Sesame Workshop partnered with IDEO to design a mobile software application that would function as a utility app for parents and as an entertaining behavioral-development app for kids. The goal was to deliver a “magical experience” for young families looking to ease the often difficult behaviors displayed by 2- to 5-year-olds during routine activities, such as potty training, getting dressed, and going to bed. In the app’s first 30 days on sale, Elmo made more than 4 million calls to kids. By June 2012, more than 20 million calls had been made and Elmo Calls was listed in the iTunes App Store as an “essential” app for kids. Elmo Calls offers children an interactive experience with the beloved red, furry monster on Sesame Street. Kids receive or initiate pretend video calls, audio calls, and voice mail messages, and are entertained with fun sing-a-longs, imaginative games, and educational opportunities (such as learning the alphabet and to count). Meanwhile, parents can activate or schedule calls from Elmo related to a variety of everyday situations. Parents give the app glowing reviews. On the iTunes Store review page, one dad notes, “My 3-year-old has never been so excited to go potty, brush his teeth, clean up, and go to bed. I have the schedule set to have Elmo call four times while he’s preparing for bed, and he just ran around doing everything Elmo told him to do. He even tried to go brush his teeth without myself or my wife.” IDEO came up with the idea for Elmo Calls after noticing that kids were picking up TV remotes and talking into the devices to imitate their parents using cell phones. This intersection of child behaviors (mimicry and the public demonstration of newfound abilities) enabled us to meet an inherent need in kids to be like Mom and Dad as well as to deliver a fun and useful behavioral education tool. The initial concept raised a few challenges: What features would be most valuable for parents? What call content would be most compelling for kids? How do you keep kids from accessing the parent section of the app, yet still make the parent menu accessible and intuitive for grown-ups? IDEO’s team spent a week talking to parents and sharing prototypes to develop the parent interface. Two key themes arose: Parents wanted to activate their child’s favorite calls quickly, and they wanted to schedule calls to Elmo. With these themes in mind, designers refined iterations over the next few months—sharing the evolving vision with Apple digital-interface experts, parents, and Sesame Workshop. The final design of Elmo Calls uses a series of familiar interface elements and focuses on only the most important aspects of the experience. For example, the parent menu is accessible through an “unlock the iPhone” gesture. The parent menu also uses a tabular menu, which is common in Apple’s native design language. For kids, the team shot new footage of Elmo, limited the number of buttons, and made each button large and playful. Elmo Calls can be downloaded for 99 cents in the iTunes App Store. http://www.ideo.com/work/elmo-calls-iphone-app

Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street and other beloved children’s brands. Its projects bring critical lessons in literacy, numeracy, health, and wellness to children in 150 countries.

Sesame Workshop partnered with IDEO to design a mobile software application that would function as a utility app for parents and as an entertaining behavioral-development app for kids. The goal was to deliver a “magical experience” for young families looking to ease the often difficult behaviors displayed by 2- to 5-year-olds during routine activities, such as potty training, getting dressed, and going to bed. In the app’s first 30 days on sale, Elmo made more than 4 million calls to kids. By June 2012, more than 20 million calls had been made and Elmo Calls was listed in the iTunes App Store as an “essential” app for kids.

Elmo Calls offers children an interactive experience with the beloved red, furry monster on Sesame Street. Kids receive or initiate pretend video calls, audio calls, and voice mail messages, and are entertained with fun sing-a-longs, imaginative games, and educational opportunities (such as learning the alphabet and to count). Meanwhile, parents can activate or schedule calls from Elmo related to a variety of everyday situations.

Parents give the app glowing reviews. On the iTunes Store review page, one dad notes, “My 3-year-old has never been so excited to go potty, brush his teeth, clean up, and go to bed. I have the schedule set to have Elmo call four times while he’s preparing for bed, and he just ran around doing everything Elmo told him to do. He even tried to go brush his teeth without myself or my wife.”

IDEO came up with the idea for Elmo Calls after noticing that kids were picking up TV remotes and talking into the devices to imitate their parents using cell phones. This intersection of child behaviors (mimicry and the public demonstration of newfound abilities) enabled us to meet an inherent need in kids to be like Mom and Dad as well as to deliver a fun and useful behavioral education tool.

The initial concept raised a few challenges: What features would be most valuable for parents? What call content would be most compelling for kids? How do you keep kids from accessing the parent section of the app, yet still make the parent menu accessible and intuitive for grown-ups?

IDEO’s team spent a week talking to parents and sharing prototypes to develop the parent interface. Two key themes arose: Parents wanted to activate their child’s favorite calls quickly, and they wanted to schedule calls to Elmo. With these themes in mind, designers refined iterations over the next few months—sharing the evolving vision with Apple digital-interface experts, parents, and Sesame Workshop.

The final design of Elmo Calls uses a series of familiar interface elements and focuses on only the most important aspects of the experience. For example, the parent menu is accessible through an “unlock the iPhone” gesture. The parent menu also uses a tabular menu, which is common in Apple’s native design language. For kids, the team shot new footage of Elmo, limited the number of buttons, and made each button large and playful.

Elmo Calls can be downloaded for 99 cents in the iTunes App Store.