Tiny Tales

My Role

I was the lead UX Designer responsible for summarizing interview data, sketching solutions, creating prototypes and validating them with usability testing.

About this Project

As Tiny Tales have grown their online library collection, parents have expressed difficulty in navigating their app. I was brought onboard to do a 5 Day Design Sprint developed by Google Ventures to answer critical business questions. Through research, design, prototyping and testing ideas with customers, I was able to develop a platform that helps parents find the right stories to read to their children.

The challenge

Parents are not pleased with how hard and time consuming it is to find engaging stories to read to their children that are both age-appropriate and appealing.

Solution

Process

As a Design Sprint the project was divided into 5 days to address research findings, mapping, sketching, prototyping, and testing.

Day 01: research Findings & User Mapping

Day one involved familiarizing myself with the product and understanding users' pain points through preliminary research findings provided by Tiny Tales. It was discovered that there are two main users:

User 1: Parent or Caregiver

Ages 30s - 40s. Busy parents who actively reads to their children at least 3 to 5 times a week. Parents do not want to spend too much time searching for books to read, would love to have books in different categories, themes, ages.

User 2: Child or Children

Ages 3 - 12 year olds. Often share story time with siblings. Sometimes age gaps mean story time is not age appropriate.

User quotes from preliminary research

Samantha

“My children are avid readers and I noticed that they are developing better listening skills and reading skills from reading. My girls make educated guesses because of what they read. I would like to find stories related to their age and their experiences in school”

Children: Priscilla 9 years old, Heather 6 years old, Adam 3 years old

Jasmine

“ I choose stories based on what kind of mood my children are in. Sometimes they are in a silly mood, feeling sad or getting in trouble
in school”

Children: Jack 7 years old and Angela 5 years old.

This information helped me determine the current process and user mentality. I then focused on mapping out a new process for choosing a book. Parents would determine what book to read depending on the theme (stories of the week, recommended for you, age appropriate stories) and also read other parent reviews of the stories before selecting what type of story to read.

Day 02: Sketching

Day two consisted of evaluating our competitors “lightning demos” , using the crazy 8 sketching tactic and determining the most critical screens for the Tiny Tales app. While evaluating other e-book/audio apps that had multiple selection of stories or books to choose from (Kindle, Amazon), I knew that I wanted to design an interface that was easy to use and followed a similar navigation system as my competitors. With that in mind, I was able to quickly sketch out the new Tiny Tales app interface.

The idea behind this sketch was to have a familiar feel as Amazon / Kindle (scrolling up and down, browsing stories side to side, individual stories popping out to read reviews, etc.). I wanted users to move through the app seamlessly and select stories in a short amount of time.

Day 03: Decisions, Decisions

I really enjoyed participating in Google's Ventures 5 Day Design Sprint. I learned so much about being agile, working quickly and not overthinking the UI aspect of design. I also enjoyed that I was able to test out my ideas faster, iterate as needed and deliver a product that my clients will enjoy using.

Day 04: Prototyping

On day 4, I turned the storyboard into a prototype and created a “realistic facade” to test out with customers. This was an exciting process as I was able to bring my ideas and sketches into life. I played with different colors, layouts, fonts to create a high fidelity product in matter or days not months.

View Prototype

Day 05: Test

The final day of the sprint was dedicated to user testing. I conducted two in person sessions and one remote session. Participants were parents in their 30's-40's and have experienced similar frustrations in finding the right book to read to their children. As for their feedback, it was generally positive. The users knew how to navigate Tiny Tales easily and mentioned that it was thoughtful to have "age appropriate tabs" to choose from. They liked that there was a small synopsis page and that they can read reviews, add reviews, and share reviews of stories.