One of the first products we built for ourselves at Tiny Factory was a bi-lingual language learning application for toddlers. The catch was, none of us had a toddler and only our iOS developer was bi-lingual.

We talked to parents, we beta tested with kids. We even brought kids down and watched them play our game. But none of this put us inside the problem.

It didn’t put us inside the greater circumstance in which our technology lives.

Now I’m not saying it’s impossible to develop a product without living the problem yourself, but there were a lot of things we didn't know.

Why were parents using this application?

There’s the obvious reason as to why they would download it — they wanted their child be bi-lingual in an ever changing global economy. But that’s not the real reason. The real reason might be to get a break; to take a shower; to have a quiet car ride; or maybe to take a phone call with a loved one.

What was the circumstance in which the application was being opened? Was the parent sitting with their child or was the child playing alone? What is the attention span of a 3 year old on an iPad?

Designing a UI for a 3 year old versus a parent is a much different task and requires a different set of circumstances to consider. Do we need locks on the interface so it couldn't be easily exited on accident? Do we need parental guards on in-app purchases? Should we be asking for a review if it takes the child out of the app and potentially confuses them?

Was the application an educational tool or simply a babysitter who sold the parents on being bilingual?

We often went back and forth on the level on education vs gamification when creating these applications. It’s a fine balance that we’re still struggling to nail down with our larger language offering.

The list of questions goes on and on and at the time, before being a parent, I could not have answered any of these with certainty.

Knowing the circumstances are essential to building the proper user experience

Before being a parent, and living everyday taking care of a child, I didn’t understand the day to day — even minute to minute hurdles that parents face.

I didn’t realize how hard it is to use the rest room without a) a screaming child scratching on the door or b) a child constantly trying to play with the bowl of toilet water.

I didn’t realize how pleasant a quiet car ride can be. With a child it can be a minute to minute emotional roller-coaster always on the verge of chaos, barely curbed by the consistent flow of toys and bottles. This is just what is happening inside the car.

I had no idea what it’s like to be caught in public with a child whose diaper is overflowing onto your shirt and you have neither a spare diaper or a change of clothes. Trust me, you no longer look hip or cool.

While I can’t solve all of these problems, I would have never known, or even considered them in a product design before experiencing them both circumstantially and emotionally.

As solution providers — we need to put ourselves in the problem in order to properly solve it. We need to treat these problems as our own, and then dig ourselves out of them with our own solution.