Week 5: "How Might We"?

We started off this week by focusing on one of the hardest and most important questions we might have while tackling this challenge, which is – what is the precise definition of the issue we are trying to solve? Is it simply the challenges of being distracted by driving while having the kids in the car with you? Or maybe we should first understand in what way this sort of driving could potentially be used in order to have some sort of quality time with your kids (something quite rare for many parents these days)? Furthermore, we weren’t sure on what age-group of kids should we establish our project upon. Is it mid-schoolers or maybe toddlers? The differences are quite big.

In order to have better understanding of the situation we try to deal with, our group members started interviewing more and more parents with different experiences (and different kids, obviously). very soon we started to get a better picture of what exactly is the scenario in which we might be able to find a new and creative solution.

One very interesting conclusion we got from the interviews was the fact that for most parents, there is a great dissonance between their need to be an attentive and caring parent; one who listens to his kids and takes active parts in the conversation, to their need to be a responsible driver who, first and foremost, must focus mainly on the road.

Is it really possible to get some quality time with your kids in this situation?

Another feedback we got was the fact that it is not uncommon for parents to go as far as breaking the law on the road, because of these kinds of ‘kids hazards’ in the car. One such example we were told about was that a non-driver parent in the car might be holding the toddler, which is a very dangerous and illegal act.

To conclude, so far it does seem like there is a very strong connection between the parents need to focus on driving to their need to keep their kids busy. And if by doing so we will even help the parent bond with his kid more than he usually does in these drives, then we’ve got it big time.