Crayola

Designing Connected Creative Play Systems for Children

How do you design play systems that sustain engagement, encourage creativity, and connect physical and digital experiences over time?

Overview

At Crayola, I worked on two connected creative play systems:

  • Crayola Create & Play — a subscription-based creative platform with ongoing content expansion

  • Scribble Scrubbie Pets — a free companion experience connected to a physical toy ecosystem

Rather than designing isolated features, my focus was on defining the interaction and engagement systems that shaped how children played over time across both products.

This included designing core play loops, progression and reward systems, onboarding flows, and long-term content structures. I also owned the creative reward layer of the progression system and the content roadmap that supported ongoing engagement.

Across both products, I collaborated with product, engineering, Customer Insights, and content teams, and extended the experience into physical environments through work with the Crayola Experience team.

Core Challenge

Children engage strongly with creative experiences, but engagement declines quickly when:

  • content becomes familiar

  • progression is unclear

  • onboarding slows access to play

  • systems fail to evolve over time

At the same time, the products needed to balance:

  • immediate playability for children

  • long-term engagement through progression

  • ethical and trust-conscious subscription design

  • seamless connection between physical and digital play

The challenge was not to design individual features, but to design systems that could sustain engagement, curiosity, and creative exploration over time.

My Role

Game Designer • Interactive Systems Designer • UX Designer

System Ownership Areas

  • Core play loop design (exploration → creation → reward → return)

  • Progression and reward systems

  • Creative reward content layer (unlockable system content)

  • UX flows, onboarding, and tutorial systems

  • Long-term content roadmap and seasonal release strategy

  • Interactive activity design and replay systems

  • Physical–digital interaction system design (Scribble Scrubbie)

  • Usability testing synthesis with Customer Insights

  • Cross-medium experience extension (Crayola Experience exhibits)

Designing for Immediate Access to Play

Challenge

Usability testing revealed that children consistently wanted to enter activities as quickly as possible. Any friction in onboarding or navigation reduced engagement and led to early drop-off.

This created a key design constraint:

How do you guide children effectively without slowing down access to play?

Solution

I designed onboarding and activity entry systems that prioritized immediate engagement with minimal instructional friction.

  • Activities were made directly accessible from the home experience

  • Learning was embedded into interaction rather than front-loaded instruction

  • Onboarding became contextual and progressive rather than linear

The system was designed so children learned by doing, not by reading or being instructed.

Outcome

This reduced friction in early sessions and improved engagement by allowing children to immediately enter creative play.

Designing Engagement Through

Progression and Reward Systems

Challenge

While initial engagement was strong, children often stopped returning once activities became familiar.

The key question was:

How do you sustain engagement in a system built around repeatable creative play?

Solution

I designed a progression system where continued creative engagement directly shaped what children unlocked over time.

  • In Create & Play, children unlocked eggs that evolved into new pets

  • In Scribble Scrubbie Pets, progression enabled access to additional collectible pets

I also owned the design of the creative reward content layer, defining what children unlocked and ensuring rewards reinforced exploration rather than transactional completion.

Outcome

This created a sustained engagement loop:

explore → create → unlock → return

Progression became a natural extension of creative behavior rather than a separate reward structure.

Designing Replayable Creative Activities

Challenge

Individual activities needed to function both as:

  • first-time discovery experiences

  • and repeatable creative tools over time

Early designs tended to lose engagement after initial use.

Solution

I designed activities as exploratory systems rather than linear tasks.

Each activity was structured to:

  • support open-ended creative outcomes

  • encourage experimentation over completion

  • allow repeated use with variation in results

  • integrate naturally into the broader progression system

The goal was to design for sustained exploration rather than one-time success.

Outcome

Activities became part of a reusable creative toolkit that supported long-term engagement across sessions.

Designing Connected Physical–Digital Play

Challenge

Scribble Scrubbie Pets existed as a physical toy ecosystem, but the digital experience initially operated separately.

The challenge was:

How do you translate physical ownership into meaningful digital interaction for children?

Solution

I co-designed a scan-to-unlock system that connected physical toys to digital identity.

  • Children scanned their physical Scribble Scrubbie pets

  • Scans unlocked corresponding digital characters

  • Digital pets could then be customized and interacted with

This system ensured that physical ownership directly shaped the digital experience.

Outcome

The experience extended the value of the physical toy and created a continuous loop between physical play and digital interaction.

Designing a Living Content System

Challenge

To sustain long-term engagement, the experience needed to continuously evolve without disrupting the core system.

The key question was:

How do you introduce new content over time while preserving familiarity and usability?

Solution

I owned the long-term content roadmap, defining monthly releases and seasonal updates that introduced new creative experiences into the system.

To support this, we structured:

  • scalable activity frameworks

  • repeatable interaction patterns

  • integrated content pipelines (including video-based experiences)

This allowed the system to evolve without requiring structural redesign.

Outcome

The product functioned as a living content system, continuously expanding while maintaining a stable core experience.

Designing Through Behavioral Testing

Challenge

Observed user behavior often differed from initial design assumptions.

The key question was:

How do you ensure the system reflects real child behavior rather than expected behavior?

Solution

I partnered with Customer Insights to conduct usability testing with children and translated behavioral observations into iterative system changes.

We analyzed:

  • navigation behavior

  • interaction patterns

  • engagement drop-off points

  • spontaneous discovery moments

Insights directly informed refinements to onboarding, activity design, and progression systems.

Outcome

Design decisions were continuously validated and refined based on real-world behavior, improving overall system usability and engagement.

Extending the System Into Physical Experience

Challenge

The creative system existed primarily in digital form, but the brand also operated physical environments.

The question was:

How do you extend a digital interaction system into physical space?

Solution

I collaborated with the Crayola Experience team to design interactive exhibits that translated core interaction principles into physical installations.

These experiences reinforced the same creative behaviors present in the digital products.

Outcome

This extended the creative play system beyond the screen and reinforced a unified interaction model across physical and digital environments.

Impact

  • Improved early engagement by reducing onboarding friction

  • Designed progression systems that reinforced long-term creative behavior

  • Defined reward content structure supporting sustained engagement

  • Supported continuous engagement through structured content evolution

  • Enabled physical–digital play through scan-to-unlock systems

  • Improved usability through iterative behavioral testing

  • Extended interaction systems into physical environments

Reflection

This work reinforced a core principle:

Children do not engage with individual features—they engage with systems that evolve with their curiosity.

My focus shifted from designing activities and interfaces to designing interconnected systems of interaction, progression, and content that sustain creative engagement over time.