Lego DOTS is a new arts and crafts building concept which gives children a creative canvas for social, self-expressive play with endless, ever-changing patterns, colours and designs.
From initial brainstorm, throughout research, kids testing and finalising products I was part of the team creating DOTS and innovating on all product fronts, to create the most fun and open experience.
We designed a new flexible bracelet element, in soft rubber, which allows the kids to bring DOTS with them showcasing their style.
The bracelets started as simple sketches from us and went on to the element and engineering team, who figured out the details linked to manufacturing, safety and quality.
It is made to fit a series of wrist sizes and safely hold the tiles in place and comes in many fun colours.
Our aim when designing DOTS was to create a straight forward building experience which would allow the kids to feel in control and pick where to start (building or decorating) and give them control over the process. Giving them unlimited possibilities to design and showcase their own style, on wearables and useful home décor products.
To support the new building experience I worked with the Building Instructions team to create new manuals. As we realised the existing booklets were not ideal for our users.
We created a new building instructions poster format for Lego. This allows kids to choose where to start: building or designing patterns. One side is purely dedicated to inspiration and another to building.
During testing kids repeatedly called the poster their 'designer book', showcasing they felt in control of their creative process.
New packaging was created both for the bracelets and for the home décor line.
For the first, individual packs with a see through space to showcase the tiles and with pattern inspiration.
For the home décor, trays with space to store bricks (central compartment) and tiles (lateral compartments). This was both a storage solution, for a better user experience, and a way to show the tiles, so the consumer knows what they are getting.
Throughout the design process we used a lot of internal research. First insights were drawn on a quantitative study conducted with 10,800 parents and 7200 children across the US, China and Germany, and among the participants a total of 21600 play observations were mapped out and used to identify the relevance and concept direction of DOTS.
The product development phase was further refined by monthly hands-on play sessions, biannual focus groups and quantitative tests across US, UK, Germany and Denmark with more than 500 parents and kids over two years, ensuring the design development aligns to consumer input.
I was in charge of the internal kids testing and hands-on play sessions, facilitating workshops with kids aged 6-12 throughout the development time.
Our insights also came from trend companies and personal research. We used reports from Trend Bible & WGSN, which we interpreted and bent to suit our target user and add edge to our product, making the product look fresh, set kids up for success and match the houses and play patterns of tomorrow.
Together with a colleague I lead trends and colours analysis to then relay to the team and department.
