POINTER
The reading app that helps Parents make reading interactive and fun.
Overview
The Mission
Prosodio Inc, is an education technology StartUp company that developed a real-time speech processing engine, named Pointer, that allows children to put words together with text. Scientific studies suggests that applying voice to visual content enables children to make a more direct connection to language learning. Prosodio’s mission was to find a way to boost early literacy development by using Pointer to “bring words to life” for both parents and children to be engaged during reading time.
I teamed up with a group of designers and accepted the mission in finding the solution for Prosodio’s challenge.
Duration:
3 week sprint
My Role:
Information Architect; Research; Site Mapping; User Flows; User Interviews; Usability Testing; Wireframes
Illustration By Franklyn Espinoza
Team:
4 person team
Tools:
Pencil and Paper; Sketch; Figma; Adobe XD; Basecamp; Trello; Mural; Whimsical; Google Drive
Type:
Product Design
The Business Problem
After speaking extensively with the CEO of Prosodio Inc., we were able to identify the main problems they wanted to solve.
Create an application that has an interactive user interface to pair with Pointer’s real-time speech processing engine for parents and children to use during reading time
Create a user interface within the product that will create an engaging user experience for both children and parents when reading.
Create a product design in a way in which the parents will have enough interest to invest in the app in order to read to their children on a consistent basis.
The Solution
The solution was to build an app that will bring out the joy and interest of reading for both parents and children, by using the real-time speech processing technology to a visually responsive interface on iOS tablet devices. The product design would find ways to engage the children and provide Parents with data that could be used to help their children read. The speech technology would work as a way of gathering the data while providing children with the ability to create their own stories.
The Research
Stakeholder Interviews
The journey to the solution began with research. First, online informational research and then user interviews. Unfortunately, after much time and efforts spent surfing the web, there wasn’t much online information about Pointer. The only thing we found was a marketing video of a Mom reading a book to her children with the narration explaining what the Pointer app was. So what did we do? Ask Prosodio for intel, as to who the competition was and what users they were targeting. Our findings showed that EPIC! education software was the closest competitor to Pointer and parents with kids ranging from 4-10 years of age would be the target.
Heuristic Evaluation
We first began by performing a Heuristic Evaluation and a Competitive Analysis of the “Pointer App” versus other competitors to see how they fare in terms of usability feedback, proper implementation, and developmental guidance for a digital experience. This was useful for the development of the user interface for Pointer.
Comparative Analysis
Since Pointer had no interface in its current state, we performed a comparative analysis showing the companies that have the content and structure similar to the functions that Pointer would have. The goal was to leverage what Pointer could do that the other companies could not do. This was found in the “story creation via voice technology” feature.
User Surveys / Interviews
Next, user surveys/interviews were conducted to better understand the experience of parents that use digital platforms for childhood learning.
Out of the 56 respondents that completed the survey and the 10 users that were interviewed. The main takeaways found were:
46% of families has “story time” in their nightly routine
26% percent of families uses digital platforms
Technology has to be user friendly, intuitive and user accessible
Children must be engaged and able to read without constant parent over site
The parents want to see the child’s reading progress
Comments from Parents regarding accessibility and user friendliness.
Comments from Parents regarding the struggles with children engagement.
The User
Meet Aubrey Banks: Proud working Mom to two beautiful children from the age range of 4 and 7
Illustration by Franklyn Espinoza
Pain Points
Lack of boundaries and difficulty managing time during pandemic
Controlling and monitoring screen time has become difficult
Tired from long days at the office
Technology is not user friendly
Not from family culture of reading
Child not engaged, interested or focused to read
How can the app serve her needs?
Well-researched literacy program
Encourage a love of storytelling
Provide knowledge of the child’s reading level progress
Responsive, intuitive and interactive design
Intuitive, accessible and easy to use
The Navigation & Flows
In order to serve Aubrey well and help resolve her pain points, I worked on the site map and user flow in order to provide the structure and show the paths that Aubrey and her family would navigate and use throughout the app. This was important because good navigation and flow in a product, leads to an engaged and invested user.
Site map provided the structural plan for the prototype. The user flow explained how the user, parent would journey through the app via the “happy path” highlighted in red.
The Design and Test
Now that the navigation and flow was in place, it was time to start thinking about what the wireframes for the prototype would look like.
So many ideas were flowing out of all of us but in order to make our 3 weeks sprint cycle timeframe, we created a feature prioritization chart that would keep each of us to the tasks at hand.
Design Studio of ideas between Team Prosodio and the Client
Feature Prioritization Chart
Due to my background in Finance, I took lead with the creation of the analytics section that would provide insights and progress tracking into the child’s reading.
The child’s progress is broken down in the details of words used, stories created books to read on a daily basis.
The achievements would incentivize the child engage more with stories and reading on a daily basis.
The review page where the parent can see what the child needs help with as well as the child’s progression.
I introduced the structure for the analytics section with some lo-fidelity and mid-fidelity iterations. The visual and interaction designers within the Team took it to the hi-fidelity levels.
Analytics Iterations- Review Section
I started sketching out ideas for the analytics section that included progress tracking for reading levels, word count. Daily progressions as well as top 3 books read. With a sharing button.
After further synthesis and ideations with the Team, it was suggested a calendar and reward incentive progression be included. So, I continued to sketch out more ideas for the analytics.
From there, I moved the lo-fidelity sketches to mid-fidelity to be used for usability testing.
After feedback from the usability testing. The review portion of the analytics section was updated to hi-fidelity levels.
The Usability Test
At this time, each of us had a hand in creating and designing the sections for the user interface for Pointer. It was time for all of the parts to be assembled together to put the Pointer app to the test.
I, along with the interaction designer, conducted usability testing on 3 participants on the first version of Pointer with the following task scenarios:
Login to the Pointer App
Pick a book to read to “your child”.
Create a story to read to “your child”
Where would you expect to find what “your child” did each day?
Where would you go to find details of “your child” reading?
Where would you go to find “your child” contents in his stories?
Where would you go to see how you can help “your child” with creating a story?
Explain how and where on the app would you go to see the “your child’s” usage of words?
I paid close attention to the users’ behavior in trying to see how intuitive the navigation and flow within the app would be. Although all of the users completed the tasks, there was some confusion. Based on the feedback of the usability testing, we were able to identify and iterate on the top 3 features that needed more clarity:
Story Creation Page
Review Page
Home Page
Story Creation Page
The first version of the story page was not very intuitive. From observing user testing we found several users were not aware that the arrow to the left was the button to add pages.
Comments from Testers:
“I thought pencil was writing or typing and not drawing….Understood the speaking mic….”
“…expected the add story info on the right…”
After feedback from the user testing, the story pages were updated with the plus sign “+” on the right side of the page to clearly show where users can add additional pages.
The original story page allowed for limited copyrighted character stickers and there were no sticker search capability.
Comments from Testers
“Are there generic stickers to be used?”
“…Will there be a way for kids to search for stickers?"
“Are stickers avatars?”
The iterated version displays more generic stickers to protect from copyright infringement as well as provide the ability to search from collection of stickers.
Review Page
The first version of the app, was not very clear in showing the intention as to how the Parents could engage with the child’s progression data.
Comments from Testers
“Prompts in calendar - set goals”
Based on user feedback this was changed to show what data was being tracked and how the Parent’s can engage with the child in improving the child’s reading or story telling progression.
Home Page
The original home page confused users, in that they were not sure which section led to which call to action, based on where the labels for each section were placed on the page.
Comments from Testers
“…Shelves labelling whats below them”
“Sharing outside or inside?”
Based on the feedback from user testing, the home page was updated to show a clear distinction for each sections to action.
The Prototype
Once all of the feedback from the usability testing was gathered, we were able to make the adjustments and incorporate them into the design for the prototype. Thus resulting in the completion of the mission to deliver the MVP version of the Pointer app to the Client.
Next Steps
The goal of delivering a minimum viable product (MVP) to the Client was reached. However, if given more time, future features that were found during the research and development of the app could be built out. Some of these features are:
Prototyping with voice triggers
Exploring library content
Expand achievements
Make the app functional across all device platforms
Build out the portal/dashboard for Educators
Takeaways
In creating the app not only was the problem answered, but the app is robust enough that it can be expanded for educators use. After presenting the minimum viable product (MVP) of the prototype to the Client. Prosodio, Inc was so impressed with our work and how we listened to their feedback that they expressed an interest in continuing to collaborate with us to help them bring the product to life for usability testing on a local school district.