DESIGN SPRINT
CLIENT
TinyTales
DATE
2023
ROLE
UXUI Designer
TinyTales is a startup company dedicated to offering parents, caregivers, and teachers a comprehensive digital library for children of all ages. TinyTales aims to spark curiosity and nurture a lifelong love for reading and learning.
Day 1: Research
Day 2: Sketch
Day 3: Ideate
Day 4: Prototype
Day 5: Validate
TOOLS
DAY 1
Tiny Tales is a startup company dedicated to offering parents, caregivers and teachers a digital library for children. The objective in the Design Sprint is to quickly iterate and enhance the designs, pinpointing effective solutions to address common user challenges.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Parents and caregivers find it difficult to locate age-appropriate, engaging stories in a vast inventory. TinyTales simplifies this by offering personalized recommendations, clear age suitability, and reading duration for each story, delivering faster and more effective results.
SOLUTION
TinyTales addresses the challenge of finding suitable stories by offering personalized, age-appropriate recommendations tailored to each child’s interests and reading level. The platform streamlines the search process, providing quick access to books that fit desired reading durations, minimizing time spent searching, and maximizing quality reading moments for parents and children.
DEFINE
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Our research showed that users want a simple, personalized app for children’s learning and enjoyment. Filters for education, life lessons, diversity, reading level, and reading time help users quickly find suitable stories. Story previews and prompts for discussions boost engagement. We learned that targeted filters and engaging content create a meaningful, user-friendly experience focused on learning and enjoyment.
TARGET AUDIENCE
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Parents, caregivers, and teachers reading to young children
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Adults with easy access to a tablet
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Children ages 0-11, including my three
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Reading levels from Preschool to 6th grade
PERSONAS
From the persona of Claire Smith, a busy mom who values efficient, educational story selections, we learned that parents and caregivers struggle to find age-appropriate, engaging books due to overwhelming options. They spend more time searching than reading and have difficulty identifying stories that match specific interests and preferred reading lengths. This insight emphasizes the need for a simplified, targeted book selection process that prioritizes quick access to suitable, engaging content, making reading time more enjoyable and efficient.
PAIN POINTS
The pain points show that parents and caregivers struggle with too many book choices, often spending more time searching than reading. They need an easier way to find books that match specific themes, interests, and appropriate lengths. This highlights the need for a tool with filters and clear information to help them quickly find suitable stories.
PERSONA
PAIN POINTS
JOURNEY MAP
On Day 1, we focused on understanding the challenges parents face in finding age-appropriate, engaging stories for their children. Through user research and interviews, we mapped the user journey to uncover pain points and opportunities. We developed personas to clarify users' needs and preferences in selecting children's books. This foundational work sets the stage for brainstorming solutions that simplify the search process and improve the overall user experience.
The user journey map revealed key insights into how parents and caregivers search for and read stories to children. We learned the importance of a streamlined process, focused search and filtering, easy access, and tools for preparation and engagement. This journey map highlights the need for intuitive search, clear navigation, and smooth access to story content to elevate the user experience.
DAY 2
LIGHTENING DEMO
On Day 2, we explored children’s reading apps to gather design ideas for TinyTales. We learned that vibrant visuals, clear navigation, large icons, and a simple, kid-friendly layout are key to creating an engaging experience. Features like bright colors, friendly avatars, and uncluttered layouts make the app inviting, while dark backgrounds with bright icons improve readability. These insights will help us design TinyTales to be fun for kids and easy for parents to use.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Our competitive analysis of TinyTales, Epic!, and Amazon Kids+ revealed essential elements for a successful children’s reading app.
TinyTales
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Bright, cheery colors for a kid-friendly appeal.
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Personalized recommendations based on user preferences.
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Story collections tailored to children’s interests and reading levels.
Epic!
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Vibrant and colorful interface appealing to children.
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Relevant content that matches the child’s reading level and interests.
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Badges and rewards system to motivate young readers.
Amazon Kids+
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Easy-to-use navigation with a familiar layout for Amazon users.
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Extensive library with diverse content.
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Parental controls and customization options for managing content.
We learned that vibrant visuals, personalized recommendations, motivational rewards, and easy navigation are crucial for engaging young readers. Parental controls and customization options add value by making the app safe and user-friendly. These insights will guide us in creating a colorful, interactive, and intuitive app that appeals to both kids and parents.
HOW MIGHT WE ...
Based on insights from the lightning demo, we formulated the following "How Might We" questions to guide our design sprint and address key challenges:
How might we simplify choosing books in an overwhelming selection?
How might we make the process of searching for books less time-consuming?
How might we decipher how long a selected read will take?
SKETCHING
Sketching helped us explore navigation, recommendations, interactive elements, and reading time displays. Early visuals allowed quick idea refinement to enhance user experience. The Crazy 8s exercise encouraged rapid brainstorming, leading to creative solutions like filters, interactive features, and reward systems. This process underscored the value of diverse, fast ideation for improving engagement and usability.
SKETCH SOLUTIONS
From the Crazy 8s and solution sketching, we learned that fast ideation helps generate diverse, user-focused ideas. Refining and sketching these concepts highlighted key features like easy navigation, interactive elements, and reward systems. This process gave us insights into feature feasibility, layout optimization, and team alignment, ensuring the app is engaging as well as user-centered.
DAY 3
On Day 3, we refined our ideas into a clear solution and created a detailed storyboard for prototyping.
SOLUTION
Solution: We developed a solution for TinyTales that addresses users' main challenges: streamlined search, personalized recommendations, and engaging features to enhance the reading experience. This approach provides users with a more intuitive and enjoyable way to find age-appropriate and engaging stories.
STORYBOARD
Creating a storyboard mapped out the entire TinyTales user journey, from opening the app to reading a book. This detailed, step-by-step visualization clarified user interactions and served as a blueprint for the prototype. Storyboarding allowed us to understand the user flow, identify potential pain points, and ensure a smooth experience. It also aligned our team on the user journey, establishing a strong foundation for an engaging, user-friendly prototype.
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Creating low-fidelity wireframes helped us outline TinyTales’ basic structure, focusing on content placement and navigation flow. This early testing allowed us to refine the app’s layout for clarity and usability, setting a strong foundation for the next design stages.
DESIGN SYSTEM
HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
By the end of Day 3, the high-fidelity wireframes for TinyTales offered a polished view of the app’s interface, allowing us to refine design details and user interactions. This step confirmed that the layout and functionality aligned with user needs, providing a clear guide for final improvements.
DAY 4
On Day 4, we created a high-fidelity prototype of TinyTales, bringing our storyboard and design ideas to life. This realistic model allowed us to visualize the user experience, test interactions, and make necessary adjustments. Prototyping was essential for ensuring the design met user needs and flowed smoothly before moving into development.
GOAL ACHIEVED
By Day 4, we completed high-fidelity prototypes for TinyTales, ready for testing and validation. Prototyping allowed us to refine design and functionality, ensuring alignment with user needs and goals. This phase highlighted the importance of realistic prototypes for spotting minor issues, improving interaction flow, and setting a solid foundation for development.
DAY 5
TESTING
On Day 5, we tested the TinyTales prototype with target users to assess usability and functionality. Observing real user interactions revealed subtle usability issues and provided insights for refinement. User feedback was invaluable for validating design decisions and enhancing navigation and feature clarity, showing how user-centered adjustments lead to a more intuitive and engaging app.
SENERIO #1
During testing, some users felt that the forward and back buttons were unnecessary.
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT
While users generally had a positive experience with the app, users noted a few areas for improvement.
SENERIO #2
User testers found the TinyTales logo font and headers confusing, making it unclear where the app begins. To improve clarity, we decided to redesign using more blue and yellow accents, incorporating moon highlights from the cover pages for a cohesive and welcoming look.
SENERIO #3
Testing revealed that users prefer shorter sections indicating reading time in minutes, making it easier for them to gauge the length of each story. This feedback led us to consider breaking down reading lengths into smaller, clearer time segments for better usability.
SENERIO #4
During testing, we found that kids favored the bright yellow background; however, it created visibility challenges for storytellers. To improve clarity, we switched to a blue background, removing lighter shades to ensure consistency and readability for all users.
RESULTS
The TinyTales design sprint resulted in a user-centered, highly functional app. Key improvements focused on streamlined navigation, enhanced logo design with clear blue and yellow accents, and calming colors that improved readability. By incorporating user feedback throughout the process, we created a clear and enjoyable experience for young readers and their families, reinforcing our commitment to accessible, user-focused design.
REFLECTIONS
User feedback was invaluable in transforming TinyTales into a more user-centric product, and I felt encouraged by how each insight directly improved the design. Testing guided us in refining key elements to create a seamless, enjoyable experience. Throughout the 5-day design sprint, I focused on user needs and agile design principles, prioritizing simplified navigation, logo clarity, and readability. Switching from vibrant yellows to calming blues enhanced readability and comfort, making the app more inviting. These iterative changes strengthened my commitment to accessible, user-friendly design, and it felt rewarding to see TinyTales evolve into a valuable tool for young readers and their families.