THE GARDEN
The Garden is a toy product for children I designed, and prototyped using user research. I created an indoor garden bed filled with soft, fleece wrapped cubes of dirt that create the crop grid, and various root vegetables and vine vegetables to play with and plant in the garden. The bed container has a drawer for storage. The garden bed is made from MDF and the plants are sewn fleece stuffed with Polyfill, and upholstery foam. The vine vegetables have hidden magnets in the stems that help easily connect to the vine on the post that also has magnets throughout.
These feature some foam user testing approaches, and process photos of me creating the kids garden bed toy.
I created these charts to display my user research and the psychological research I found behind children’s toys and cognitive development. Similar to the toy kitchen with fake food, this garden bed was designed to create a simulated reality that can be acted out upon. The use of imagination, and interactive components will promote social skills, competency, and executive functioning in children. I had researched case studies, and psychologists who studied children such as Erikson and Bandura to support my design decisions throughout The Garden’s creation.
