COMPANY

  • Fast-growing education startup

  • Teaching creative writing to kids & teens

  • Online & in-person classes

  • No platform or community space

PROJECT

  • Duration: 4 weeks

  • My Role: UX Designer, UI Design Lead

  • Tools: Figma, FigJam

Written Out Loud is startup that teaches collaborative creative writing to kids and teens, helping them become published authors. I have had the pleasure of teaching with them for a few years now and was so excited when the leadership expressed interest in building an app to create a space for their growing community. My design partner and I built a mobile app MVP to address the needs and pain points we uncovered in our research.

PROBLEM

WOL experienced low retention rate between programs, resulting in revenue fluctuations; students lacked ability to stay connected with WOL friends & community, resulting in lack of engagement & excitement for upcoming programs.

TASK

Design a mobile app MVP that provides a solution to business problems & serves the user’s needs, wants, & frustrations.

ACTION

  1. Devised & executed a 3-legged research program.

  2. Defined business and user problems.

  3. Followed a user-centered design process.

RESULT

Exceeded expectations and influenced stakeholders to develop the app. During usability testing, students expressed excitement about the app and showed their desire for it to be developed.

The Hero's Journey Goes Digital

Three-legged research program.

  • Stakeholder interviews

  • User research (proxy users & observational interview)

  • Competitive Research

Stakeholder Interviews

GOAL

Understand the business and the problem to be solved. Foster stakeholder interest.

Business Problem

WOL experiences a low retention rate between programs, resulting in ebbs and flows in revenue through the year.

User Interviews

GOAL

Understand the users’ pain points, needs, and motivations.

PAIN POINTS

  • Revenue fluctuations

  • Kids not involved in program sign-ups

NEEDS

  • Constraint - safety

  • Stable revenue

MOTIVATIONS

  • Company backbone & values

  • Growth

Hypothesis

A community-based mobile app fostering active engagement with WOL through collaborative creative writing and storytelling will increase student engagement before, during, and after programs, resulting in increased program sign-ups.

PAIN POINTS

  • Lack of community outside the classroom.

  • No way to nurture WOL relationships after class.

NEEDS

  • Opportunities between programs for storytelling and collaboration

  • More WOL

MOTIVATIONS

  • Interacting with likeminded kids.

  • Being creative and collaborative

  • Expressing oneself #theyhavealottosay

INSIGHTS

  • WOL has no direct competitors

  • Onboarding flow introduces users to the app

  • Homepage promotes and guides user engagement

  • Guide users with a clear flow

  • Engaging visual design

  • Safety - avatars

Competitive Research

GOAL

Validate the need for the product in the market; understand design trends to avoid re-creating the wheel and throwing users for a loop.

Werdsmith

Ulysses

Daily Prompt

These insights validated our hypothesis. With this understanding, we were able to move on to defining solutions that addressed these needs and frustrations.

Defined the business problem and generated a north star user.

  • Point of View Statements

  • How Might We Questions

  • Persona

  • Storyboard

Ideated and brought the idea to life

  • Brainstorm features + prioritization & card sort

  • Sitemap

  • User flow

  • Wireframing

  • Prototyped + Tested

  • Iteration

Atomic Design is a process that consists of five steps that work together to build more coherent, hierarchical, and thoughtful interface design systems.

Usability Test Results

  • 5/5 successfully completed tasks

  • 5/5 few to zero errors

  • 5/5 overall positive feedback

  • 5/5 participants would like to see this app developed

Iterations

Conclusion

  • Exceeded stakeholder expectations and influenced the company to develop the app.

  • Stakeholders were impressed at how we captured the brand and tone of the company and incorporated features to promote user safety.

  • Students loved the experience and expressed their desire for it to be developed.

Results + Next Steps

  • The app is expected to impact the business by increasing program sign-ups, therefore increasing and stabilizing revenue.

  • It is also expected to impact the students by increasing community and engagement.

Thank you for reading!!

Interested in working together?