Baking Bits is an activity concept for Amazon Glow where children learn math fractions by measuring ingredients for pies. Baking Bits uses physical pieces to help visualize fractions, and then brings them to life using the Glow projector.
This case study examines how I developed the Baking Bits concept, from ideation to prototype.
UX Designer
Interaction Designer
Game Designer
Motion Designer
Concept Ideation & Definition
Wireframes and User Flows
Animatic pre-visualizations
Game Design Document
Amazon Glow is a product that blends the physical and digital world. One of the ways it accomplishes this is with Glow Bits, which are flat tiles that are tracked and augmented with the Glow projector.
Tangram Bits was the first activity to use Glow Bits, and was one of Glow’s most popular features.
Compared to digital-only experiences, educational games that utilize physical objects can significantly enhance learning and enjoyment for children.
With this research in mind, our goal was to create an educational game that used Glow Bits to make learning more fun.
Before brainstorming concepts, I first established activity tenets. These helped guide our brainstorming efforts, and ensured we were generating ideas that aligned with the goals of the project.
Concepts should be…
Fun first - Concepts should index high on fun, while still being educational.
Physical piece dependent - Glow Bit pieces are an essential part of the experience.
Age scalable - Concepts should appeal to children ages 5 and up.
I facilitated several brainstorm sessions that included UX, Product and Engineering colleagues. I structured the brainstorm into 3 categories. Subject/domain, physical piece type, and user actions.
We then generated concepts that mixed and matched from each category. This approach produced a broad range of creative ideas.
I took the 6 strongest ideas and created concept one-pagers to refine the thinking, and then pitched them to the leadership team.
We decided to move forward with a Glow Bits baking concept, where players learn math fractions by measuring ingredients for pies.
As players add Glow Bit pieces to the measuring cup, the Glow projector paints them with animated textures, bringing them to life.
This creates a delightful feedback mechanism for the player, alerting them if they’ve measured correctly or not.
I researched Montessori methodology for teaching math fractions, and this felt like a good foundation for Baking Bits.
In Montessori, children use fraction circles to visualize parts of a whole. This helps children better understand more abstract math concepts, such as fraction equivalence and operations.
From here I began creating wireframes to map out the end-to-end experience, and defining the user interactions. I first focused on fraction additions, which has players adding Glow Bit pieces to a digital measuring cup.
One of the early design challenges was that players needed to reset the Glow Bit pieces after adding an ingredient. To address this, I designed a game mechanic that had players physically move the Glow Bits into the mixing bowl. This created a fun micro interaction, and allowed players to clear the board.
Due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, I couldn’t conduct normal user testing. So, to get signal on the concept, I created animatic prototypes. These animatics allowed me to get concept feedback, and test the user interactions and projection mapping.
Since we were trying to project digital effects onto physical objects, the assets for the animatic had to be designed to a specific size. After some initial projector testing, I partnered with a Visual Designer to create custom assets to use for the prototype.
Once the animatic was built, I loaded it onto a Glow device and filmed myself miming the interactions. This allowed me to clearly demonstrate how the projection mapping worked, and showcased the unique Glow Bit game mechanics.
In lieu of user testing, I consulted with two early childhood education domain experts to get feedback on the concept. Overall they liked the idea. However, there were a few gaps in the design.
Children should first be introduced to the concept of whole parts, and how they can be divided into smaller parts.
Activity was missing the concept of fraction equivalence (e.g. 3/6 is equal to 1/2), which is a fundamental part of learning fractions.
After consulting with domain experts, I saw an opportunity to address their feedback, and potentially add more customer delight. I expanded Baking Bits to include two additional modes, pie cutting and pie serving.
Pie cutting shows how whole pies can be divided into equal pieces. Players “cut” the pie by placing a Glow Bit piece into the pie tray, which triggers a fun pie cutting animation.
Pie serving has players determining the fraction equivalence by adding the correct amount of pie to the serving board. (e.g. Serve 1/3 of a pie that is cut into 6 pieces).
Unfortunately, Amazon Glow was cancelled before Baking Bits launched. However, I was still able to takeaway some valuable learnings from the project.
Including non-UX colleagues in brainstorms, such as Product and Engineering, really helped diversify our initial set of concept ideas. It also helped strengthen the rapport amongst teammates.
There is a large body of research literature around educational activities for children. It is best to build off of this knowledge base instead of trying to re-invent the wheel. This helps mitigate risk for new concepts, and maximizes the learning potential for children.
Although there is no substitute for user testing, building animatic pre-visualizations can help get early signal on a concept. It also forces you to think through granular interaction design details, which allows you to catch design flaws before you build it for real.