LATINX HERITAGE MONTH
Creating Juana la Iguana
Everybody loves a dancing lizard. Just ask Tania Gilinski-Seidl. She created Juana la Iguana, a Spanish-speaking character who’s been a longtime star of Latin American educational TV—and now iOS devices.
Juana helps the 5-and-under set learn basic Spanish via games they can’t lose. Three Juana apps—La Granja (The Farm), En la Playa (At the Beach), and En la Escuela (At the School)—teach basic words and counting in Spanish through audible and visual cues; kids are rewarded as Juana dances to traditional Spanish songs.
We spoke to Juana’s Miami-based creator about transitioning from hit TV show to iOS and why the Juana apps don’t offer instructions in English.
How did Juana la Iguana come to be?
It started about 20 years ago. I was living in Venezuela and had a little girl who watched a lot of things on television, like most kids do. There wasn’t anything that really talked about our Latina culture—especially the songs. So I decided to write something I would like for my daughter to watch.
The TV show became very successful all over Latin America. In Venezuela, at one point it was the best-selling video, second only to The Lion King. We ended up selling to Televisa, which is a very big TV station in Mexico.
You took a long Juana break before returning to it recently. Why was that?
I’d moved to the U.S. and had four kids, but people who grew up watching would still tell me, “Juana is my childhood.” For many reasons, I decided that I wanted to have my brand back. But the world had changed—there were now smart TVs, apps, social media.
I looked at what apps there were in Spanish. At the time, in 2014, there were very few. An app seemed like the best way forward.
Were you familiar with the basics of developing an app when you started?
I had no idea. I found a company here in Miami called Rokk3r Labs, and they helped me. The truth is, it’s the same as doing a television program. The steps are the same and the creative part is very similar. The difference is, instead of using a camera you use a developer so the ideas can be realized.
How did you figure out what material you wanted the Juana app to cover?
We met with educators here in Miami. We started to understand that one very important thing to preschoolers is social emotional learning. Learning letters and numbers—yes, that’s important. But at the end of the day, if a 3- or 4-year-old is able to develop social and emotional skills to get along with other kids, that’s much better.
What was the toughest choice you had to make in developing the app?
We have a lot of parents who are English speakers, and we’ve had parents say, “We want the instructions in English.” We decided not to do it, because kids are intuitive. They tap until they find the answer, and then they repeat. This is how you learn a language—by repetition. For the kids, English instructions weren’t necessary.
What was the most surprising thing you learned from designing the app?
I was reminded that creativity comes from limits. Because we came from television, we wanted to have a lot of animation and video, but found the app would be too heavy. But when you’re writing an essay and you have 2,500 words and you need to stick to 1,500 words, you usually end up writing something much better.