THE BREIF

The WWF Free Rivers app was developed to engage and educate children about the importance of protecting our rivers and habitats. It was recently launched in 2018 and still has some obvious kinks to work out. Aside from improving its technical glitches and load time, users have complained about its lack of depth, minimal interactivity, and difficulty of use.

Skip to Final Prototype

HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE

3 weeks

MAKE OF THE TEAM

Lead UX Researcher, Lead UX Writer

KEY GOAL

Enable teachers to facilitate engaging, interactive, and collaborative learning
Add more gamification
Make the game more Developmentally Appropriate for the younger players.

User Research & Usability Testing

Users were asked to complete a set of tasks during the first round of usability testing.

83% of the students successfully completed all tasks
50% of teachers were able to successfully complete all tasks

During the Affinity Mapping process, I noted some distinct pain points for both the educators and students.

C&C Analysis

Key Findings

Some of the main pain points shared during the initial usability study were:

Both Teachers and students wanted clear instructions during onboarding. They were confused about what their first task was, and how to navigate the game.
Teachers and students wanted more engaging content.
Teachers wanted students to be able to ply the game with little to no assistance.

Problem Statements

After synthesizing the research, there were two distinct personas. The first was Kristen. Kristen is a passionate teacher that's trying to drive engagement in the new remote world.

The second persona is Etta. Etta is a student who misses interacting with her friends. She misses the social aspects of going to school.

Full Personas

The current app, before our redesigns

Sketches

Mid-fi Prototype

Hi-Fi

Clickable Prototype:

During the last round of usability testing,100% of participants successfully completed all tasks

Next Steps:

Designing a teacher dashboard gives us lots of new opportunities to expand learning. This dashboard can serve as a resource hub for teachers, children, and parents.

Teachers who participated in the initial usability testing mentioned that they have students learning English as a second language. They noted that the students would have difficulty retaining any information from playing the game. To make the game more accessible to all students, they suggested adding some additional features. Some ways this can be done re by:

Using simple copy
Enabling voiceovers in various languages
Offering the game in multiple languages

Let's Connect.

CONTACT