Hamleys- London Trip

During the London excursion I visited a shop called Hamleys. This is a toy shop that caters for children aged 0-100. When looking at the range of toys that were on offer I began to think in terms of the relation to my project. -

I then decided to look at how the various interactive toys differ when applied to a variation of age groups. The main reason this is relevant to my design is because my target audience is across a broad spectrum so the interface must be universally useable by everyone.

Below are some toys aimed at the youngest part of my target audience:

House Puzzle

“Build your imagination with the amazing shape sorting wooden house. Slide the multi-coloured walls in and out. Take the roof off or flip it over to reveal new patterns with smiley faces, crescent moon, star, cloud and clock shapes”. (www.hamleys.com/housepuzzle.html)


This Hamleys house puzzle is a construction model that allows for children to knock down the building and build it up again. This toy has bright vivid colours as well as an assortment of funny characters decorating the house. The brightest colours are stimulating, and definitely draw in the attention of children. This stimulates the child’s senses of sound, vision and touches and promotes fine motor skills.

Aqua draw mats

“This unique drawing toy comes with a water-based pen, so no mess means Mums will love it too. Simply fill the pens with water and let little hands create their own masterpieces. As the magical canvas dries, the pictures disappear to allow for new masterpieces to be created”. (www.hamleys.com/aquamats.html)


Theses aqua draw mats allow for quick and functional drawing for children of a young age. Using this allows children to express themselves and can also help with writing.

Utilising something along these lines is interesting- because as stated by digital London this style would allow for “intuitive interaction” between the user and in my scenario a multi-touch wall. To take the concept even further even simpler than drawing on a wall would be finger painting- this concept could be developed further.

Diego Animal Rescue Laptop

“Diego and his animal friends come to life with this colourful learning laptop. This comes with a portable jungle design with an LCD screen for animated learning fun. 10 interactive learning activities including: letters, numbers, maths, music, animals and animal facts and more. Press the character buttons to activate fun mini games that encourage hand-eye co-ordination and cause and effect concepts. Features the real voice of Diego”. (www.hamleys.com/diegoanimalrescuelaptop.html)


This laptop is looking towards slightly older children. It has a wide range of applications, which include a wide variety of interactive learning experience.

The information gained from looking at the range of toys in Hamleys has been very beneficial. The next step is to look at how an immersive interactive learning environment superior when it is in comparison with static images on a screen. I will do this by looking into a variety of stats and statistics about child learning and development.