Lenovo Play

Lenovo Play

PC App UX/UI

Physical Product

Project Manager

UX Researcher

UX Designer

Lenovo Play

STEAM-powered play for everyone.

A conceptual collaboration project with Lenovo UXD and SCADpro, Lenovo Play is an educational experience for children centered around Science Technology Engineering Art and Math (STEAM) learning.

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Project Type

Conceptual exploration of new form factors & digital experiences

Duration

10 weeks, Fall 2019

Tools

Figma, Illustrator

Team

SCADpro x Lenovo

Following this SCADpro collaboration, I received an employment offer from Lenovo.

I joined Lenovo as UX Designer on the UXD team after I graduated from SCAD in May 2020

Design Digest

Creativity for all.

Lenovo, the world's largest maker of personal computers, joined forces with SCADpro at the Savannah College of Art and Design in a collaboration exploring educational experiences and diversity. With a focus on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) learning, my team was tasked with creating concepts to build inclusive and cooperative learning environments for children. Our concept, the interactive game Lenovo Play, harnesses augmented reality to empower users to expand their computer skills and creativity.

In the initial stages of the collaboration, we conducted extensive research like on-site visits to STEAM classrooms, observing firsthand how elementary school-age students use technology in their learning. Barriers to STEAM and inclusivity were identified during this research, with five user archetypes created to target solutions to these barriers to learning. The SCADpro team followed with ideation, production, and testing stages to create a finalized design.

Introducing Lenovo Play

An interactive educational gaming platform

Click to view the vision video

Discover

We began by exploring how families and younger users engage with technology, entertainment, and educational content across Lenovo devices. Through a combination of market research, stakeholder interviews, and exploratory workshops, we sought to understand user expectations and brand opportunities in the digital play space. Our research surfaced themes around trust, content safety, ease of use, and the desire for discovery-driven engagement. These insights gave us a foundation to explore what Lenovo’s role could be in supporting healthy digital play.

Problem Statement

To support Lenovo’s work of encouraging more diversity among the students considering STEAM careers, Lenovo partnered with various design concentrations at SCAD to create a computer educational experience that teaches children how to build a device and learn basic software programming.

Problem Statement

Project Goal

Our goal is to expose more children to STEAM and spark their interest in related career paths. We do this with the hope that it will encourage greater diversity in the industry.

Project Goal

Our goal is to expose more children to STEAM and spark their interest in related career paths. We do this with the hope that it will encourage greater diversity in the industry.

Project Goal

Our goal is to expose more children to STEAM and spark their interest in related career paths. We do this with the hope that it will encourage greater diversity in the industry.

Discovery to Direction

Our research question quickly became: How can we create a device to spike every child’s interest in STEAM and build skills through a fun, educational, interactive physical experience, no matter their background?

Discovery to Direction

Define

After synthesizing our findings, we aligned around a key opportunity: to create a curated, kid-friendly experience that combines entertainment, learning, and parental peace of mind—all within a Lenovo-branded ecosystem. We defined core user needs across child, caregiver, and device-owner personas, and mapped out the experience pillars that would guide design: safe exploration, simple navigation, and brand trust.

Research

Gen Alpha & Technology

A child who knows their way around a smartphone better than the parent that bought it for them is not an uncommon sight, with the mind blowing statistic that “65% of pre-teen kids, under the age of 13 own their own phone” - Sellcell.com Technology has seemingly found its way into everyone’s hands, no matter the way. Technology holds immense potential to educate, and getting it into the hands of our future is the catalyst to spark their interest in STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and, Math.

Gen Alpha & Technology

Barriers in STEAM

Throughout our research, we consistently found that the active involvement of parents, teachers, and other mentors was a crucial factor in a young student’s decision to get involved in STEAM activities and most importantly, move into STEAM career paths. We found that prolonged interest in STEAM was more common in instances where parents and mentors participated in joint learning and engagement with their students. Conversely, our research also found many barriers to adult involvement, such as parental concerns regarding online safety, technology addiction, and a lack of technological knowledge. These negative views often led to ignorance, dismissal, or restriction of a child’s interest in STEAM, so it became clear that we needed to address them when designing.

Barriers in STEAM

Inclusivity

Inclusion is essential. It is important in the world today as it provides equal opportunities for everyone, including those who might be excluded or marginalized.In STEAM education, inclusivity seems to be lacking as many schools and communities do not have sufficient access or funding to provide a quality education. Additionally, there is an inadequate amount of representation for minorities and women within STEAM. With the clear lack of opportunity and representation, it becomes difficult for children to pursue a career in STEAM.

Inclusivity

Site Research @ Savannah STEM Academy

We visited one school during our initial research phase and the other during our final ideation phase. This helped us to solidify our understanding of kids within the age range and how they interact with each other and their learning environment.

Site Research @ Savannah STEM Academy

Affinitization & Opportunities

Affinitization is imperative to the design process. We took all the data points from every interview/observation activity and wrote them on individual sticky notes. Once on the sticky notes, we grouped them into categories with commonalities, then wrote a sticky that describes what that group is about. After repeating this process several times, we landed on our Key Insights, which led us to our design framework.

Affinitization & Opportunities

Research Implementation

After our classroom visits, we adjusted our target age range.

The initial target audience was kids from the ages of 10-14. New target audience: 8-12 y/o We proposed that the age range be lowered because our research showed that younger students are more willing to jump into new subjects and don’t mind failing and learning in the process. By 7th and 8th grade, students are aware of their abilities and are afraid of failure; if they already believe they are bad at math, they will not engage with a fun math project. We furthered our exploration into understanding at what age students are most open to new topics and found that elementary schoolers (and younger) are the most impressionable. If a child is exposed to STEAM by the time they are in elementary school, we believe they have a better chance of pursuing it as a career. Our research agreed.

After our classroom visits, we adjusted our target age range.

Children's needs in education: Experience pillars

In and outside of the classroom, children have a distinct set of needs that are foundational for positive learning outcomes. These are things that need to be fulfilled before learning becomes effective- and maybe even fun!Through our research and affinitization, a design framework was developed, one that Lenovo Play had to touch base with to allow every child to be creative. We found that children need a personalized experience, interactive play, a safe place to explore and representation within their learning curriculums. These needs became our 4 key experience pillars to help us ideate and design.

Children's needs in education: Experience pillars

Archetypes

Following extensive primary and secondary research, 5 archetypes were outlined. These archetypes captured our audience and helped us envision the application's features and feel.

Archetypes

Following extensive primary and secondary research, 5 archetypes were outlined. These archetypes captured our audience and helped us envision the application's features and feel.

Archetypes

Following extensive primary and secondary research, 5 archetypes were outlined. These archetypes captured our audience and helped us envision the application's features and feel.

Want to learn more?

Full process details are included in the book.

Open process book

Design

With a clear vision for a STEAM-based learning experience, our team began exploring how to bring Lenovo Play to life in a way that was engaging, age-appropriate, and aligned with Lenovo’s brand values. I contributed to the concept development and visual design of the mobile application, helping craft intuitive user flows and playful, educational UI elements tailored to children and their caregivers.

Working closely with my peers and faculty mentors, I created low- and mid-fidelity prototypes, tested navigation patterns, and helped refine the visual direction through iterative feedback. We prioritized clarity, accessibility, and discovery—balancing structure with creative freedom to reflect the spirit of play and exploration.

concepts

Ideation

A series of around 30 prompt questions that related directly to our research findings were created. Everyone in the room created a concept for each prompt question, which rendered us with around 240 concepts from the initial workshop.

Ideation

One of our ideas that we took for user testing:

User Testing

User testing @ JG Johnson Elementary We visited an elementary school to user test our concepts and got very clear feedback. Kids have powerful imaginations and don’t hold back. Each student wanted to build in their own space but share their creations with each other. This experience helped us to shape the finalized concept plan.

User Testing

Deliver

A testament to the power of collaboration in driving educational innovation, Lenovo Play was envisioned as a multi-sensory STEAM learning experience that empowers children's imagination and creativity. The final concept, developed in partnership with SCADpro and Lenovo UXD, featured a modular block set, a tactile tray, and a digital screen—blending physical interaction with augmented reality. Our team also designed a companion mobile app that enables parents, educators, and guardians to track and support children’s learning journeys.

Although conceptual, we approached the project with the discipline and structure of a real-world product cycle. I was honored to be selected as Project Manager, leading the coordination of our interdisciplinary team and maintaining consistent collaboration with Lenovo’s UX stakeholders. I also contributed to refining the mobile experience, polishing our prototypes, and aligning the visual and interaction design with the broader product vision.

During the final phase, I helped synthesize our research insights, articulate our design rationale, and co-present the concept to Lenovo executives. Our work emphasized not only the imaginative potential of the experience, but also the thoughtful design decisions behind it—bridging physical and digital learning in a way that feels inclusive, inspiring, and forward-looking.

Playing and learning are often considered as two separate actions.But are they really? We think not.

After weeks of ideation and continuous refining, one clear direction stood out to our team. We’d love to introduce Lenovo Play, empowering children’s imagination and creativity. While appearing simple like any other block set, each block can radically change and morph into a multitude of different things on their computer screen or through an AR set. This allows for dynamic learning that constantly shifts depending on what the child is creating. The blocks could resemble wood and steel for them to construct a bridge for a car to pass over. Or maybe a rocket-ship they create themselves that can launch into space through trial and error of design. Even pieces of a computer that they build to see come to life before their eyes.

Playing and learning are often considered as two separate actions.But are they really? We think not.

The AR/VR Experience

When creating the digital experience, we wanted to make sure the Learner was not only engaged but actively invested in the learning process. To help make this happen, we created an intertwined narrative to guide the Learner and add a dash of personality to the experience. This narrative took the form of the player-built hub world that grew in size and complexity as the Learner spent more time and completed more complex activities with the Play system. Additionally, the ability of the Learner to build their city hub out of custom made buildings, structures, and other elements was created to give the Learner the freedom to express themselves and their personality through their own style.

The AR/VR Experience

The Companion Mobile App

In support of our research on the importance of role models and parental support: The companion app is designed to help parents and teachers engage with their learners and understand the value that Lenovo Play brings to their education. For Teachers:Teachers can find and assign activities from the game catalogue and view each student’s progress to easily identify which students need more assistance. Teachers can also push messages to their learners’ apps which the parents/guardians can also view. For Parents/Guardians:Parents and guardians can view what activities their children are doing, how they are doing with these activities and how they benefit their learning in and outside of the classroom. They can also receive messages from teachers about alerts or updates on the learner’s progress.

The Companion Mobile App

The Physical Playtoys

The Blocks

Children will use the blocks for construction and simulation based on the narratives and the games. The embedded sensors inside the blocks will connect them to the tray to start the learning journey with the software. There will be an AR overlay on the blocks with live display that corresponds to the activities within the software. The material of the blocks will be light blue colored rubber resin. Children will be able to connect the blocks with ½ inches magnet balls, that allows the blocks to have full mobility and hence, would satisfy children’s imagination. Each surface of the blocks is also magnetic making it easily to construct with different shape and provide stability.

The Blocks

The Tray

The tray is a physical area to build on top of to see your creations come to life! The tray gives you a beautiful pulse of light as confirmation that it is reading the blocks. Using a soft exterior, it is inviting; you want to hold it or place it on your lap. Located on the underside of the tray, there is a pull away screen you can use freely to view your building blocks for different games and activities! It uses Augmented Reality to turn your creations into something magical.

The Tray

The Screen

The idea behind the screen is to have a supplemental option for the kids to view the environment in. We decided to make the AR goggles optional, and we don’t want to assume that the user already has a screen of some form, so we included a moveable screen. The screen magnetizes into the bottom of the tray, allowing the user to simply pull the screen out, and use it as needed. The screen has tactile leather tabs on each edge, for ease of use.

The Screen

Debrief

This project offered valuable hands-on experience in applying UX principles to an emerging educational space. Our team reflected on opportunities for deeper personalization, parental engagement, and accessibility features that could evolve the concept further. For me personally, Lenovo Play was a chance to lead, design, and collaborate within a fast-paced, real-world-inspired environment. It also deepened my understanding of designing for younger audiences and the responsibility that comes with shaping early digital experiences.

Presenting to Lenovo stakeholders

Following this collaboration project, it was my pleasure to be a presenting member of the team during our Lenovo site visit. Following this presentation, I recieved a job offer from Lenovo which I accepted.