Together 10

TOGETHER10 is a simple idea created to help parents connect with their children offline during their most formative years. We noticed there was an opportunity for a technology based platform using basic principals of Human-Centered design to make it fun and easy for Parents and Children to do activities together. The idea is simple: provide activity ideas that a parent can do with their child offline for 10min a day. The significant impact of this product is that these are 1 on 1 activities that require personal interaction offline. It is counter to the push for activities that are all on the computer and it is up to the child to figure it out.

Research and Testing

I led the project by first interviewing kindergarten teachers to understand what skills best prepare children for school. We learned that many children enter kindergarten without foundational skills such as basic counting, letter recognition, and early phonetic awareness. In underserved communities, some children may not even understand how to hold a book or turn its pages.

The next step was interviewing parents to understand what type of product would best help them prepare their children for school. Based on these interviews, I helped identify three primary parental groups we needed to design for: single parents, families where one or both parents are frequently away from home, and families with a full-time stay-at-home parent.

Across all groups, parents consistently expressed a desire to spend more time engaging in learning activities with their children. However, they lacked an easy way to do so and wanted clear, accessible guidance at their fingertips to help support their child’s learning in a fun and meaningful way.

Based on the collected information, and before I went into the visual design phase we used wireframes to outline our needs and put in front of real parents to gauge their usability and functionality.

Then I lead numerous a/b tests. A major initiative we did was to put out multiple different landing pages to identify what tag lines and imagery was clearest and lead to the highest conversion rates. Doing this helped us better define the message and product that would best connect with our audience. The concepts included:

1) 10 Minute learning activities, created by education professionals delivered to you daily
2) Fast, Fun & Simple
3) Quality time with your kid matters
4) Make time for playtime

Spending a small amount on google and facebook ads targeting our assumed audience we tested the prototypes. I also put out ads on craigslist using an easy survey to screen our audience to do even more in depth product usability testing as well as to get feedback on their understanding of the product and how it could fit into their everyday lives.

From this work the discovery was that “Make time for Playtime” version was the most compelling and that the product needed to be at the parent’s fingertips and usable at a moment’s notice.

  • Client

    Together 10

  • My Role

    Creative, UX

Style Guide

With the info we gathered we were ready to take a more targeted approach for the back end interface and start designing the user experience and creating a style guide. This is where we take fonts, color, illustrations, and clear call to actions to help create the design. This will help keep consistency for developers follow during the development process.

Design

A key design consideration was making activities easy to find. This was achieved by organizing them into intuitive categories of interest, including:

1) Creativity
2) Math and Science
3) Reading and Writing
4) Social and Emotional

Once the categories were working, we created actives for each section. I in term created illustrations for each activity.

There were also some other filter options we need to take into consideration.

1) Time of each of the activities
2) The location of the activities

Tangible Product Creation

While in the beginning phases of launching the digital product, by listening to our early adopters we discovered that there was a need for a hands on product to accompany the site. We needed something that could be sent home that parents could play with their child. We came up with a Children’s book “How’s the Weather Heather” that included an activity guide after the book was read with your child.

This ended up being the best way to convert users to clients as when they signed up they were entered into a giveaway raffle to receive this item as a gift.

Final Product

Testimonials