The aim of this thesis was to design an ‘Episode Builder’ toolkit which facilitates filmmakers to easily create a wide variety of episodes that all contain at least one educational response moment for 1.5-3-years-olds while meeting parents’ concerns. Additionally, four different response moments were designed which trigger the child to actively engage with the content. These response moments were integrated within the toolkit’s concept.

During the analysis phase, extensive literature studies and an interview with a pedagogue resulted in an overview of context-dependent design opportunities and threats that would affect the educational value of watching television, spread over the six core elements of the framework. Context mapping research with Dutch families found that it was most common that parents let their toddler watch TV when the parent requires his full attention on another activity during the day. However, parents are bothered that their child wasn’t actively thinking about the presented content on television. Therefore, a design goal, an interaction vision and 18 design guidelines were formulated for creating educational and actively engaging episodes, which resulted in the design of four different response moments which a toddler can safely perform without the parent’s supervision.

When evaluating Pixifox Animation’s first storyboards, it was found that filmmakers integrated too many features within their storyboards which are too complicated for the viewer. Two design principles were formulated in which the toolkit should 1) facilitate filmmakers to explore essential features around a central theme, and integrate these features within their storyboard, and 2) fit the filmmaker’s creative process. These design guidelines, and the integration of the response moments, resulted in the toolkit’s final concept, consisting of five templates.

A validation study with 6 participants was set up to clarify whether the toolkit is able to facilitate filmmakers to create a great variety of educational storyboards around different central themes. In pairs of two, participants worked with five laminated paper templates to create an educational storyboard containing one response moment around a chosen theme.

The Episode Builder found to be able to facilitate filmmakers to create various educational storyboards which all include one response moment around different central themes. Participants had a clear idea about what the story’s essence and learning goal should be, which a toddler can comprehend. However, some educational value was lost, since the toolkit failed to facilitate the participants to translate these features into visual shots which aren’t overwhelming for the viewer. The activity was reviewed as insightful, probably easy to use after the first use, and somewhat repetitive.
Future tests should involve participants who are willing to the toolkit several times for four hours to validate if a 3-5 minute storyboard can be created within this timeframe and gain insight which types of themes can be explored with the toolkit.

Design explorations are recommended about how the toolkit can be introduced more efficiently, be more efficient in use when creativity isn’t required, and how parent and child could reflect on the episode’s content in other activities to elevate the educational value.