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YLE and Aalto University collaborate to design future streaming service for children and youth

Published: 24.3.2023

Aalto University and the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE have partnered to develop and design ideas for a new branded streaming service for children and youth.

VCD students collaborating with Yle — Team Sandbox's concept, Justus Arvelin, Emma Hansén, Joonatan Koponen

The project was part of a six-week Experiment Process course, and second-year visual communication design students collaborated in small teams to create a unique brand identity and user experience for the service.

The student teams were tasked with creating a visual identity that would appeal to the target audience while maintaining YLE's brand identity. They also proposed new features and functionalities for the service, considering how it could evolve as the child grows and stay relevant for its audience throughout their youth. The double-diamond design process gave structure to the project work, and YLE's design team supported the students with valuable insights and feedback.

"We're excited to collaborate with YLE on this exciting project. Our students have a unique opportunity to apply their design and thinking skills to real-world challenges while learning about design strategies, branding streaming services, addressing user needs, and improving user experience. YLE benefits from our students' fresh and innovative ideas, and this collaboration is a great way for students to practice teamwork and relevant work-life skills," says Markus Joutsela, Senior University Lecturer from the VCD programme at Aalto University.

“We were positively surprised how great results the students achieved in a short time, without previous experience in this kind of design process. Meetings with students and hearing their presentations were especially inspiring for the YLE team. Many findings from the research phase and themes brought up by the students supported our own thinking, but the concepts also contained new ideas and surprising solutions that we would not have thought of ourselves. This was a great collaboration, the results of which are a pleasure to present.” said Maria Leinvuo, Service Designer, working with Audience Insight and Customer Experience at YLE.

The project culminated in presentations to YLE's Design team, who were impressed with the students' creativity and professionalism. The proposed concepts were rich and diverse, with many novel ideas for the brand identity, user interface, and user experience and interaction, but also novel proposals for community building, the use of different features and strategies such as gamification, artificial intelligence (AI), or augmented reality (AR).

The collaboration between Aalto University and YLE highlights the benefits of combining academic expertise with industry knowledge to produce innovative solutions. The project also provided valuable insights into the streaming habits of children and youth. The success of this collaboration showcases the talent and creativity of the students and the importance of collaboration between academia and industry.

VCD students collaboration with YLE — The dial-like user interface and user experience for this concept are clever and original providing a new kind of interaction and engagement to the service.

Team Sandbox: Justus Arvelin, Emma Hansén, Joonatan Koponen

"We wanted to create an original streaming service that stands out from the crowd with its circular UI, social interactions, and AR features — something new and exciting for the kids and youth."

Team Sandbox continues: "Throughout the project, we were guided by the insights we gleaned from interviews with children. We realized that kids need a safe platform for socializing and expressing themselves."

Team Ylelyönti: Anna Miettinen, Aurora Näsi, Samu Pitkänen

"Our group wanted to focus on YLE's role in the larger societal context, so we decided to combine slow tech, AI, communication and streaming to create design that adds real value to its users on individual and communal level. Our main focus was on parental burnout and loneliness in an individualistic age."

Team Ylelyönti continues: "We created a concept of an AI-story time nanny, that supports burned-out parents by teaching, entertaining and guiding the smallest kids. We also created an easy-to-use screen time planner to create boundaries for kids’ screen time usage. We integrated age-appropriate ways to navigate the streaming service according to the user's development. For older kids we created a group watch option with video contact; apparently, a lot of teens were already doing that via Facetime!"

More information:

Markus Joutsela, Senior University Lecturer, Aalto University
[email protected]
Tel. +358 50 409 4405