CASE STUDY
TinyTales has a library of short stories, illustrated books, and educational stories. As the library has grown, parents have expressed that it has become difficult and time-consuming to find the right stories to read to their children.
Problem Statement:
How would you make it easier for parents to find great books and stories to read to their young children?
Overview: About the project
Challenges
Make it easier for parents to find great books and stories to read to their young children.
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Design an app for iPad or tablet.
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They currently have an inventory of stories written by contributing authors.
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Stories are discovered and read on the app (hardcopies and downloads are not available).
What I Learned
There are a lot of things to consider when developing an app for parents to use with and for their children. Everyone
is different. What one parent considers important to their child’s development may not be important to another parent. So narrowing down and finding the core elements is essential to success.
Design Sprint
Day 1 - Understand/Map
During the process of developing ideas to streamline the selection issue, I kept in mind that what may work for some parents may not fit the needs of another parent.
Day 2 - Sketch Your Solution
I selected this screen because of the simplicity. The three categories are from the Tiny Tales library: Short stories, Illustrated books and Educational stories.
Day 3 - Create a Storyboard
Based on the brief, the parent is in a rush so I knew I wanted to go with a tab system but I did not want to overcomplicate things. So I decided on 3 general tabs with sub-categories.
Day 4 - Build a Prototype
The three main categories are extremely broad so to narrow the field streamline the search I added 4 sub-categories. They are: Age, Recommendation, Popular and by Author.
Day 5 - Validate Your Designs
I interviewed the testers via chat. Because the site was not fully functional, the testers mission was to test that the tab system operated properly. All of the responses were positive and informative. I took the suggestions mentioned and incorporated them into my design.
Results
Based on the prototype reviews, users felt the app was easy to navigate. The tab system used was a success. They mentioned that the organization incorporated into the app made them feel confident that even their children could navigate through it without any problems.
Prototype
Click image to view prototype
Conclusion
This projects biggest challenge was designing an experience to make it easier for parents to find great books and stories to read to their young children. Because everyone is different, there are a lot of things to consider when creating an app that parents consider essential to their child's development. After several rounds of usability testing and iterations, the final prototype was deemed successful. Based on some of the feedback during usability testing, in future iterations, I would explore using more whimsical fonts to garner the attention of a younger audience.
14+
Online secondary research (hours)
8
usability tests
2
iterations
Testimonial from Prototype user
“The organization makes it easy to follow. My six year-old was next to me and she got excited and said “Ooh, is that for me? Can I look through it?”