Education
Reinventing the early learning landscape for Navneet by creating a science-backed mobile application with an immersive and multi-sensory experience
Client
Navneet Education Ltd
Fortune 500 company
established in 1959
My Role
Senior UX Designer
UX design and strategy
100+ screens for mobile and tablet
Team
ZEUX UX Team
Saurabh, Sugesh, Sonali
Project Timeline
7 months
Context // Summary
Navneet is one of the largest paper stationery brands in India. It is also the leader in premiere stationery in markets like the U.S.A., Africa, Europe and the Middle East. During the pandemic, the company suffered losses due to a shift in online schooling and decided to venture into the online ed-tech domain with a new brand identity, Leapbridge. The product's vision aimed at learning 6 important skills with a hybrid approach (digital + physical kits) in a structured and personalized pace for children aged 2-5 yrs
Our ZEUX team collaborated with Ketan Gala, (President - Navneet Publications), Prreity Gosalia (Chief Content Officer) and Development team.
Project Scope
Develop and deliver a unique early learning app using a hybrid approach (digital + kit-based learning) for children aged 2-8 years which is holistic, personalized, adaptive, engaging and age-appropriate.
Key Deliverables : UX Strategy, Information architecture, Task flow architecture, User Test Report. B2C 100+ Visually designed high fidelity screens for mobile and tablet each + Internal application dashboards for 3-4 profiles
Project Impact
Created a unique brand identity for Leapbridge
Developed UX strategy that followed a scientific approach and design guidelines to back good user experience + scalability of the app with new features and content
Usability testing gave us promising results for overall app based on qualitative data and children's first impression and interaction.
Seamless development support and handoff
$249 Billion
Global market size for early childhood education
80%
children between the ages 3-6 are enrolled in ECCE programs
Tier I, II
Market concentration is higher in urban cities
Challenges
We had user research conducted by a third party agency that dissected the target audience of parents into 2 groups. However, I conducted extensive domain research (early learning articles/books and conversations with child psychologists and experts) and competitive landscape analysis to find a direction for our UX strategy and design guidelines. We conceptualized a backstory for the characters teaching these 6 holistic skills as well.
UX and business needs at a cross road
From our competitor analysis, we realized that premium positioning set by the client wasn't in alignment to the market and the needs of the parent. I prioritized showcasing data and information through a pricing analysis of competitors in comparison to other competitors in the market.
Standing out in the sea of educational apps
We tried to understand strengths and weaknesses of direct and indirect competitors and realized that it is tough to stand out especially amongst apps like Khan academy and Kutuki, which are free to use. I emphasized on a science backed, immersive and multi-sensory approach and we devised a UX strategy focused on specific design principles for the app. I also analyzed parent's motivation to use Navneet's application with blocks and drives.
UX Design Principles
Be gentle with the child’s mind
Pre-decide the curriculum to personalize the pace
Child
Educate the parent
Give parents a sense of progress
Expect the unexpected
Parent
Keep things hyper simple
Use existing mental models
Provide clear audio-visual feedback
Gamify the experience to keep the child motivated
Throw in some surprises
Make it Indian
Interface
Niche target audience with a balance on satisfying child and parent's needs
We were catering to specific group of class in tier 1 cities that were focused on academics or play and were willing to pay a higher price for their child's early development. We researched and explored various tech enhancements within the app and added features like cloning the parent's voice for stories that helped with the app's premium positioning.
Design solution
The design principles helped us align interface decisions while managing stakeholders vision and expectations. Since this application was for extremely young minds, we wanted to take the opportunity to educate the parent during the onboarding on the importance of the psychological development of the child at that age.
Highlighting value props upfront
The early learning curriculum personalized the child's experience based on scientific methods recommended by experts, leveraging Navneet's authority in the education domain.
We created a fun and nurturing environment with multi-sensory inputs such as background music for home and in-game modes and feedback sounds for task completion and daily rewards
Features that resonate with both
Since the app is used by the parent and the child, we wanted the parent or guardian to have an identity within the application ecosystem.
We introduced the avatars and recorded the parent's voice for reading out stories to the child within the app.
Personalizing to the child's pace
Education experts at Navneet co-created these questions that would enable personalizing the app as per the child's current knowledge
We found that parents were easily able to answer these questions without any hesitation or a feeling of confusion/guilt of not knowing how much the child knows. Our usability tests proved this to be an easy QnA
Activity Zone
Most parents would want their children to be away from screens at this age or use them for the least amount of time. Therefore, the activity zone had to be gentle on the child's mind and simple to navigate. We posed a constraint of viewing and participating in 4-5 activities each day so as to balance digital learning with other hands on activities.
Parent Mode
The application had a parental zone that had restricted access to only the parent or guardian. This zone had the child's learning progress, rewards, community and a shop for parents to buy goodies based on the characters and skills learned.
I designed these user flows keeping a human-centered approach in mind, making parents feel a sense of happiness instead of overwhelming them and their child in achieving xyz milestones at such a young age. We wanted to focus on the child's creativity and natural learning pace.
Usability Testing
We built a high-fidelity prototype and handed it off to our in-house developers to create a working mobile application prototype. The prototype included sound design with interactive characters for a multi-sensory experience. These were some of the key findings that we found during our user tests with parents and kids
The term guided learning was being confused with learning with vocal instructions
Parents want visibility on the personalised curriculum for their kid basis the learning pace questions before subscribing
Subscription should outline all the exclusive features that the unlimited plan has vs limited plan
The term ‘Guided learning’ to be switched with ‘Structured learning’ in design
Inclusion of link to pop-up screen to give a glimpse of the personalized curriculum on the subscription page.
FAQ section to be included on the subscription page. Both limited and unlimited plans to include more content about the contents of each of the plans
Visual Design and Branding
The 6 skills taught on the application were represented by these 6 characters. We spent a few weeks finalizing the characters and their design as they play the protagonists of the application's story. Here's a simple back story I created based on these characters. Weenu, Okko, Meeru, Feego, Olu & Teena are best of friends from play school. They love to play together even though they have their own interests & favorite things to do. They teach new skills to their human friends through an activity/story/task and learn together everyday!
Weenu the Whale
Language
Feego the Flamingo
Know your world
Meero the Meerkat
Social-emotional
Teena the Tigress
Critical thinking
Olu the Owl
Math
Okko the Octopus
Creativity
Project Impact
ZEUX team created a unique brand identity for Leapbridge in the early learning ed-tech domain. We developed a UX strategy that followed a scientific approach and specified design guidelines to back good user experience.
The visual design standards team helped systemize creation of assets and components within the universe and sound design established a multi-sensory experience that complemented the design of the application.
Development Handoff
The SPOC had left the company mid-way but I worked with a new PM and development team to support them in the process and assist with design.
We managed to hand off more than 100+ screens mobile/tablet screens + dashboard within the time frame despite of the ever-expanding scope
Promising results
Usability testing gave us promising results for the overall app based on qualitative data and children’s first impression and interaction with the app.
While no curriculum or content was provided to aid our design decisions, we designed for the parent, child and the client.
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