Dabble

In Singapore, many youth grow up with limited freedom to explore and define their own hobbies, often shaped by parental expectations or societal pressures. For many adults, this means missed opportunities to explore personal interests or discover hobbies that truly resonate. Children, too, may find their hobbies pre-defined, leaving little room for self-discovery.

With the above vision in mind, Dabble was born.

Objectives and Product Goals

We want to create a platform that offers a shared space for parents and children to discover activities/hobbies to do together.

By using our product, we hope that

1. Children can share openly with their parents

2. Parents can learn more about their child's preferences

3. They can find activities to do together quickly and easily

Research and Approach

To better understand the problem space, our team did secondary research to find out more about how hobby plays a role in the lives of Singaporeans.

Secondary Research

Key findings

• Having Hobbies have a variety of benefits, largely depending on what the hobby itself is. Generally having a hobby can improve a person's overall well-being, through positive impact to physical and mental health, building a social network and support community etc. (Straitstimes Article: Why taking up a hobby should be your New Year’s resolution ↗ (opens in new tab))

• While the benefits of having hobbies are clear, the costs of not having one are less immediate and often invisible—essentially, an opportunity cost of missing out on the potential long-term benefits for having one

• Demograhics and Hobbies

  • Demographics play an important role in how one perceives having a hobby and the problems they face with it. Examples:

    • Age; Seniors have time and resources, whereas a teen would have little access to both. A middle-schooler will also have different expectations of activities they can be involved in compared to say a university student

    • Level of income may impact accessibility of activities you can do as a hobby

Team brainstorming on demographics and needs

Below is a video by CNA Insider titled "Are Young People Getting The Help They Need? | Confronting Youth Mental Health Part 2/2", which features a parent who engaged in hobbies which were of interest to his daughter in order to improve their relationship

Primary Research

Based on the secondary research, we sent out a survey on "Shared Hobbies and Activities for families and Adults" to find out who our target users should be. Key results:

• We received 71 responses

• Youngest 32, Oldest 68!

• 80% of respondents who are parents struggle to find meaningful activities to share with their children

• No. 1 reason: “It’s hard to find common activities for different ages”

This confirmed to our team that there was indeed a gap that can be filled with families between parent and child

We also reached out to Care Corner to learn about the problem space and explore potential use cases with them

With Care Corner!

Solution

Given the research findings, we decided to design a solution that follow these core principles:

1. Can be used by all age groups, by making it usable by a child as young as 7 year old

2. Eliminates or at least reduces friction to do an activity/hobby together

The solutions we decided on are actually in 2 forms: a physical Card game and an online quiz to guide and facilitate conversations between parent and child(ren) on personal interests. It includes curated discussion points to guide families through meaningful exchanges to build stronger connections.

The activities we compiled as part of the activities are free or very accessible to most of the population, and we provide a resource page that lists out further details to help our users continue on to do those activities together.

Dabble Card Game Design

Playtesting Dabble card game prototype

We piloted our Quiz ↗ (opens in new tab) with a few Members of Public (Parents) and the Social Service Agency - Care Corner.

Key Findings: 

• Useful to connect especially with younger kid (<10)

• For older kids, parents engage to confirm their knowledge of their child, some found interesting insights.

Looking Ahead

This solution is a small step and angle that our team has chosen towards the vision of building a healthier conversation around hobbies between parent and child.

The road to achieving this vision is a long game, as for now these are some things we are looking for and immediate next steps

• Connect with more organizations that may find our problem space or solution helpful to their cause e.g. Social Service Agencies’ Family Service Centres to pilot prototype of quiz and cards with more families

•  Iterate and Improve on the product

  • From user feedback

  • From collaboration with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) e.g. Psychologists, Educators, MOE etc.