Experimenting With Kids’ Audio At NPR
Every few months, NPR holds Serendipity Days. The goal of this exercise is to allow staff to explore cool and interesting ideas over the course of a couple days. Libby Bawcombe and Kaytee Nesmith, product designers with NPR Digital Media, experimented with creating an audio experience for children.
NPR’s broadcasts and podcasts show a range and depth of content, and we noticed an opportunity for growth: programming for kids of various ages and grade levels. We decided to use Serendipity Days to experiment with a proof of concept for a kids podcast, aimed at younger children ages 4–7.
First, we asked about children’s programming around NPR. What does public radio offer for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and children who are just learning to read? Colleagues referred to podcasts for older children, like the “Brains On!” or segments on “Weekend Edition” where Daniel Pinkwater read aloud. While these programs are excellent for older children, we wondered what was available for little ones.
iTunes categorizes children’s podcasts as Kids & Family, which lumps together all sorts of programming — everything from pregnancy and marriage to “I Was A Communist For The FBI” (yes, really). Who has time to weed through hundreds of podcasts? Next we searched for trusted names like “Sesame Street” or programs that were parent-recommended, like story time podcasts. However, we were surprised to find that they were either too short, borderline grating (sorry Elmo!) or mostly adult-splaining.
Where do we begin?
The night before Serendipity Days kicked off, Libby and her husband — who works for PBS—asked their five-year-old daughter what she’d enjoy listening to on the radio. She mostly wanted to hear other kids her age talking about themselves and what they like.
The next day at work, Kaytee and Libby started brainstorming. We defined the goals of a kids’ podcast proof of concept:
- Offer a fun listening experience for children ages 4–7, in language and tone they understand (without annoying their parents).
- Give parents a screen-free option for entertaining their children, from a trusted source.
- Help get more words into children’s heads, as research suggests is key.
We’d also decided that the proof of concept should be around 15 minutes long — that is, long enough for a parent to sneak away and take a shower, eat breakfast, or otherwise have a predictable unit of time to plan around.
We defined segments for the show’s lineup, trying to let kid-guests do as much talking as possible:
- Adults briefly introduce the show
- Young kids introduce themselves
- Young kids talk about something they like, topic 1 (e.g., favorite animal)
- Adults/older kids teach a camp song
- Young kids talk about something they like, topic 2 (e.g., pets)
- Adults/older kids read a children’s story
- Young kids talk about something they like, topic 3 (e.g., school)
- Adults quickly explain a new word
- NPR staff do something silly (such as making animal sounds)
In addition to including kids’ voices, we needed to keep our little listeners engaged. Throughout the program, we included prompts for listeners to tell us their names, to make animal sounds and to draw pictures.
Um, how do you actually make a proof of concept?
We are neither producers nor audio engineers, and we don’t create audio for NPR. We are product designers for NPR.org and NPR One, so this experiment was outside our usual skill set. However, we felt comfortable knowing that our proof of concept wouldn’t have to be technically perfect.
Our setup was basic. We recorded kids and colleagues using the native iOS Voice Memos app and the mics on our earbuds. Next, we considered our options for editing audio. Even though NPR has its own editing software, we wouldn’t be able to learn it in the short time allotted for Serendipity Days. Instead, we used Audacity — a free Mac audio-editing tool — which was pretty easy to learn quickly.
What was our editing process? Trim, listen, repeat. Since younger listeners might zone out if the grownups over-explained everything, we decided to focus on minimizing how often we heard adults speaking. We kept it breezy with fun music in between segments.
Once we had a little over twelve minutes, we were ready to share the proof of concept with our colleagues. Kaytee set the mood with whimsical artwork, and another colleague helped name the experiment “Raydiddy.”
How did it turn out?
While we’re unable to post the entire proof of concept due copyrighted material, we can share two clips.
Clip 1: Adults set up the show, our four kid-guests introduce themselves and talk about their favorite animals:
Clip 2: Our kid-guests talk about their pets. A teacher explains the meaning of “chartreuse” to set up a camp song about three chartreuse buzzards:
Serendipity Days culminated in a morning of internal team presentations, and our colleagues’ reaction to our proof of concept was very positive. While the goal for Serendipity Days is exploration and learning, we’re really pleased that we’ve had a few internal champions who are interested in a kids experiment.
What did we learn?
We are pleased that we actually created twelve minutes of kids audio in such a short time! So what did we learn?
- Finding resources: NPR’s excellent training website helped us find guidance on creating audio and suggestions for finding music. Yet, we have barely scratched the surface on what’s available there.
- Script-writing and pacing: In order to give kids time to mentally switch gears between topics, we carefully incorporated breathing room — shorter segments, music buttons and bits of silliness. We trimmed out a lot of adult narration to make the experience for and about kids.
- Engaging little listeners: We acknowledge it might be tough for some 4- to 7-year-olds to listen attentively, so we thought of ways to continually engage them. We spoke directly to listeners, asked their names, prompted them to draw and to make silly sounds with us. Including these elements of interaction was key.
- Balancing entertainment and education: This is tricky. We imagine that parents would expect NPR to be educational. We think a program that’s light-hearted and fun would be appropriate for younger kids.
- Including more voices: Our proof of concept featured kid-guests from the same circle of friends from the same neighborhood. We prefer kids of different backgrounds and perspectives, from different neighborhoods and schools, who neither sound alike nor have the same experiences. We want our listeners to feel both delighted to hear kids who sound like them, and interested when kids sound different from them.
- Seeking more kids’ feedback: This is a biggie. If there had been more time, we would have brainstormed directly with more kids. Undoubtedly, they would come up with wacky segments we’d never considered. We’d also want kids to listen to our segments to see what’s on the right track and what’s not. Kids are great at honest feedback.
After Serendipity Days concluded, we read a wonderful article on Current.org by Lindsay Patterson about kids podcasts in public media. Lindsay produces a kids science podcast called Tumble. (We recommend you read it right now. Go ahead, we’ll wait.) We’re glad to see others who are advancing the conversation of what public radio can do and be for children.
What do you think?
We are very interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas on what younger children would listen to. Even better? Play the clips above for your kids. What do you think kids would enjoy listening to on public radio? If your kids could craft your own podcast, what would it be? We’re all ears. Please feel encouraged to post your comments below or email us at lbawcombe@npr.org and knesmith@npr.org.
