Creating a personalized NYT Mini Crossword to bring parents closer to their young adult children
GAMIFIED STORYTELLING
CONTEXT
A 4-Day Design Competition
How can we bring parents and their young adult children (18-26) closer together?
Transitioning from caretakers to mentors
Redistributing time across personal interests and broader relationships
Gaining independence as they move out and start a career
Building empathy for what their parents experienced at the same age
Parents are
Birth
(0%)
Age 18 (~90%)
Time spent
Have already spent ~90% of the time they will ever spend together by
the child's 18th birthday
Children and
Parents
Children are
At 18-26, the parent-child relationship is changing
UNDERSTANDING
Closeness isn't just measured by time spent together
There are people that don't see each other for ages but are still best friends, and there are people that see each other daily but aren't close. Our solution had to center around emotional intimacy instead of quantity of time spent together.
Discovery
Setup
Solution
Discussion
Helping people learn about the event on the NYT Games home page 3-5 days before Mother's Day. This
provides enough time for parents to create the crossword but also limits the window to foster urgency.
Discovery
Setup
Solution
Discussion
Parents are prompted to tell poignant experiences using their voice, as if they're talking to their children. Generative AI transforms these stories into words for the crossword.
Discovery
Setup
Solution
Discussion
Children solve the crossword, where the hints are pulled from parents' stories. After a word is correctly guessed, a part of the story plays out loud, as if parents are saying them out loud.
Not an end, but a starting point for children to ask questions and parents to share more stories.
Discovery
Setup
Solution
Discussion
Profound discussions don't come up naturally, and even if it's an appropriate time, it's sometimes hard or
awkward to initiate this kind of storytelling.
Good stories require the right time and place
Being close with someone means understanding their journey to becoming who they are. We see fragments
of our parent's lives, but often are unaware of their poignant experiences and memories that developed them into themselves.
The closest distance between two people is a story
KEY INSIGHTS
Invest less time, as they're more drawn to new people and experiences
Maintain a lot of digital relationships via social media
Invest more time in guiding children through complex adult topics
Are familiar but less normalized to digital connection
Children
Parents
The NYT
Crosswords
Mother's and
Father's Day
A Custom NYT Mini Crossword for Mother's and Father's Day
CONCEPT
Is grounded in storytelling, acting as a catalyst for intimate conversations
Are relatable across generations
Positioned for a time of connection and reflection
EXPERIENCE
Parents and young adult children approach connection differently
PROBLEM
Discovery
Exposition
Rising Action
Crossword Setup
Climax
Solving the Crossword
Resolution
A Catalyst for Discussion
Mimicking a Narrative Storyline
If AI worked perfectly
ARCHITECTURE
A hybrid solution for a more realistic outcome
EXPERIENCE ARC
Insightful feedback from leading industry designers
We wanted solving the crossword to feel as close to reading or watching a good story, so we designed the solution experience to reflect how someone would go through a narrative.
Flexible First Words
Directed Word Prompts
Filling in the Blanks
To meet NYT's high bar for crosswords, we designed a system where puzzle creators make a set variety of crosswords, and individuals are randomly assigned one of the puzzles to work on. They then
share stories about each of those words. This makes the puzzles still variable to maintain interest while preserving the
We used ChatGPT and Claude to test AI's crossword design abilities. Neither could form a crossword with consistent horizontal and vertical words without frequent gaps.
WHY NYT
OUTCOME
We presented to designers from Shopify, Spotify, Google, Meta, and Replit and received valuable feedback
Takeaways
The NYT as a medium for sharing authentic stories
