TINY TALES
Helping parents quickly zero in on the perfect story for their kids.
Case Study
A (solo) Google Ventures
Design Sprint
My Role
Sole UX/UI Designer
Student Project for Springboard
for UX/UI Design Certification
Design Practices
Research Review & Synthesis,
Journey Mapping, Desk Research, Lightning Demos, Sketching, Storyboarding, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Tools
Figma, Miro, Zoom
Constraints
Designs must be in tablet format
Project Timing: approx 5 days
OVERVIEW
Tiny Tales is a start-up, tablet app, where authors and illustrators can publish stories for parents to read to their children. Their library includes short stories, illustrated books, educational stories, and much more. The growth of the Tiny Tales library has led parents to express their frustration about how difficult and time-consuming it is to find the right stories for their kids.
THE CHALLENGE
Make it easier for parents to "find" the right story to read to their children
THE APPROACH
GOOGLE VENTURES DESIGN SPRINT
I was asked to use a "modified" GV Design Sprint process which is a faster, more flexible design methodology often used by “agile” teams. Modified because I would go through the process without a team. This methodology shortcuts the typically long and expensive design process that frequently takes months, and allows companies to gain answers to critical business questions in just five days. The compressed process centers around rapidly ideating, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers. Businesses are able to validate and confidently move forward with the development of good ideas or pivot quickly from bad ideas, before investing any more money and time into them.
Each Day of the GV Sprint is dedicated to specific tasks
UNDERSTAND
& MAP
RESEARCH
& SKETCH
DECIDE &
STORYBOARD
PROTOTYPE
TEST
UNDERSTAND & MAP
Day 1 is about understanding the problem and mapping a path toward a solution. Armed with some company background and user research, I dove right in.
DISCOVERY
EVALUATING THE RESEARCH
Company background and user research were provided to me. I did some of my own affinity mapping to synthesize user sentiment and validate the provided persona, Claire. The affinity categories revealed themes that lined up nicely with Claire's goals.
AFFINITY
CATEGORIES
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Speed in finding a book
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Ability to choose a book by topic
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Access to book ratings/referrals
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Book entertainment & educational value
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Book-length info
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Age appropriateness info
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Kids' involvement in choosing a book
SYNTHESIS
PERSONA
CLAIRE
34 Years Old
MOTHER
James, 6 years old & Kayla, 4 years old
Claire has a wide range of criteria she uses to evaluate what makes an appropriate story choice for her children, including the topic, age level, educational value, overall entertainment value, and quality of the story. The amount of time she spends searching for a story that fits that criteria is clearly a burden to Claire. Her time is limited and she wants to spend that time having a quality experience with her children. She wants to instill a love of reading in her kids, encouraging them to investigate topics that interest them. Her current experience finding stories on the Tiny Tales app is making it difficult to achieve those goals.
It takes a long time to find a book they agree on, let alone fit both comprehension levels.
Goals
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Claire wants to spend less time finding a great story to read to her children
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Claire wants to find stories that both of her children will understand and enjoy
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Claire wants to find stories that both of her children are interested in or learned about in school
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Claire wants to find stories that her children will find entertaining, but that also contain some learning lessons or educational value.
Frustrations
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Claire often spends more time looking for a story to read to her kids than reading it!
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Even when they find a story they agree on, Claire has to spend time quickly flipping through it to see how long it is, and if it's written for the same age group of kids.
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Claire loves when her kids ask to read or learn more about a topic or experience that they're interested in - but it's not always easy to find a story about it.
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Claire wants her children to enjoy the story she is reading - but she also likes when it has a little educational value. She spends time reading through them beforehand to see if they are just purely for entertainment, or if there are some learning points that her kids can benefit from.
Behaviors
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Claire reads to her children at least 3 times a week, usually before she puts them to bed.
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Claire really values this time - she thinks reading to her children is an important part of "family time", and that using their imagination is a good break from watching TV and playing her iPhone games.
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Claire also knows reading to her kids is a good way for them to learn and ask questions about certain things they are interested in.
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Claire tries to find stories that her children will love, so they will appreciate reading from an early age.
BUSINESS AMBITIONS
SETTING A LONG TERM GOAL
On Day 1 of a GV Sprint, teams set a long-term goal. The goal is meant to be ambitious, one that reflects the company’s principles and long-term aspirations. To choose this goal I began by reaffirming the reasons for this project...
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Parents currently find the process of choosing a story to read to their kids on Tiny Tales too long and difficult
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Their experience is counter to the positive experience they want with their kids
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Tiny Tales wants to provide a good user experience for both parents and their children
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The current process is not satisfying them
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If parents' experience with the app is bad, they may give up on it (decide the time spent is not worth it) which would mean loss of business for Tiny Tales
LONG TERM GOAL
Provide a really positive experience to users so they will recommend the app to others
EXPECTATIONS
QUESTIONS TIED TO THE GOAL
On day 1, teams also create a list of questions that they hope to have answered by the end of the Sprint. With my overarching long-term goal in mind, I made my list. These questions were both positive and negative, uncovering potential roadblocks that could prevent the goal from being achieved.
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Can the story search process be made faster while remaining easy?
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Does the technology exist to narrow the search choices by multiple categories?
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Can the search choices remain fluid so the criteria can change over time?
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Can we still keep kids involved in the process of choosing a story?
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How many steps is a parent willing to take to pick a story?
JOURNEY
MAPPING
I created a diagram indicating the customers/key players who would be affected by the Sprint, and mapping their route toward achieving their goal. In this case, the key players would be a parent and their kids. The map represents the steps they need to take to find the right bedtime story. The map also begins to provide structure for the solution sketches and prototype. In this map, the optimal, main task is to narrow the list of story choices by some kind of criteria.
TARGETING THE RIGHT USER
The Map clearly reveals the parent, not the child, as the party with the greatest interest in filtering the list of stories by specific criteria, so they get the first crack at narrowing the list and the Sprint will focus on solutions targeted toward the parent. Once the parent has narrowed the story choices, the children can pick from the curated list. In this way, the process is simplified for both the parent and the children, and the children still have a way to remain involved in choosing a story.
FOCUS
REFINING THE PROBLEM
This HMW question provided the greatest flexibility for each parent to define their own story search criteria. It also took into consideration the common desires parents had for a speedy process and an enriching experience for their child.
HOW MIGHT WE...
Help parents quickly narrow the story options on the app, using criteria they choose, to shorten their process of picking a suitable and enriching story to read to their children?
RESEARCH & SKETCH
Day 2 is for drawing inspiration for a solution by quickly researching how other companies have dealt with similar problems, and presenting possible ideas to your team via 'lightning demos'. Then, sketching possible solutions specifically suited to the Tiny Tales target.
RESEARCH
SOLO LIGHTNING DEMOS
I looked at children’s media sites, book sites, retailers, and travel companies for ideas to quickly filter content. The idea of a filtering concept made the most sense to me because it would be the fastest in removing content that was irrelevant to the user, and reduce the time and effort required to find a story. These are a few methods and elements that I found most useful.
COMMON SENSE MEDIA
Common Sense Media Is a non-profit organization providing ratings and advice to parents on children’s media. It has a variety of ways to filter content. One useful screen allows the user to filter by multiple ages or age ranges. This is useful for parents who are reading to more than one child and need content suitable for multiple ages. Other filters include genre, topic, rating, character-building qualities, etc.
EPIC
Epic is a children’s story app that immediately asks that you register your child, their age, and then makes suggestions accordingly. They have numerous ways to search, sort, and filter content. Most interesting was a general search box for keyword searches of topics, titles, authors, and more which seemed like a good general location to begin a search. Results of the initial search can then be narrowed further by adding more filters (ie. age, reading level, genre, etc.)
BOOKFUL
Bookful is another children’s story app. I liked that the book description includes how much time it would take to read the book, the reading level and the number of pages in the book. All very useful information for our Tiny Tales user.
GOODREADS
Goodreads had a number of ways to pick a book, mostly through categories. Filtering was more tricky unless you knew exactly the book you were looking for. I liked the pop-up screen upon choosing a book and the ability to add it to a “want to read” list.
ZAPPOS
I continued my research by looking at retailers who frequently need to help their users filter content. Zappos does this very effectively. Users can begin a search with keywords in a search box at the top of the app. They not only use expandable categories, they highlight the category choices, making it clear what filters the user has chosen and giving them the option to remove or change the filters whenever they want. Upon opening a product, the user can save items into a favorites folder. The “favorites” folder can be sorted and filtered as well. In general, the needs of the Zappos user are very similar to the needs of the Tiny Tales user and the Zappos filtering and sorting solution would work well for Tiny Tales.
KAYAK
This travel app places their filtering categories across the top. Upon clicking on each one a pop-up allows the user to filter in that category. Once filtered, the category is slightly shaded so users know which categories are filtered. Heart icons alongside results cards allowed for saving into a favorites folder.
SKETCH
DESIGN IDEAS
To get some of my design ideas down on paper, I used a sketching technique called Crazy 8s. The speed of the exercise resulted in very rough sketches, but even these rough representations were helpful in deciding which screen ideas might work best for Tiny Tales users.
CHOOSE & STORYBOARD
Day 3 is decision day. The group typically chooses a sketch to move forward with and creates a storyboard detailing the anticipated user experience. The storyboard is detailed enough that it provides a framework for the prototype to be developed on Day-4.
DECIDING
THE SOLUTION
I settled on the filtering concept I thought would work best in this situation and developed a Solution Sketch. The most important frame is in the center and represents the intended method for filtering the content. The other two screens represent the screen leading into the solution and the screen following the solution, or in this case, the result of the action taken by the user. I selected this particular solution because it keeps the filtering options and the indicators of the user's choices in one general area (the left side). By keeping it all on the left side, the user’s eye doesn’t have to move all over the screen to get confirmation feedback and I believe that will help reduce cognitive overload.
The most important frame is in the center and represents the intended method for filtering the content
STORYBOARD
THE DESIGN IN CONTEXT
A storyboard allowed me to put my design and solution ideas into context. Each square depicts the different steps Claire would need to take to quickly find the right bedtime story for her children. The opening scene is Claire getting her kids ready for bed. The kids choose a story topic and Claire enters it into the search box. The resulting screen is an overwhelming number of stories, but the ability to refine the search is highlighted and evident. Claire is then able to filter the results by her children’s ages, a life skill she wants to teach them (compassion), and ratings from other parents. The initial overwhelming number of options is narrowed down to just 3 books. Claire is confident they are age-appropriate, provide a life skill, and vetted by other parents. She can then let her kids choose from this narrow list of results or pick the story herself.
PROTOTYPE
On Day 4 the prototype used for testing is created. This is not a fully functioning app, it's a realistic enough simulation to garner a response from the target audience and inform whether or not this is an appropriate solution.
SEE HOW IT WORKS
My goal in designing the prototype was to rapidly create an experience that felt "realistic enough". Emphasis was on the story filtering screens designed to solve the user’s problem, so I spent more time on that process vs. further designing the home screen or even the final book page. The book images and icons I gathered, but the other elements I designed myself.
TEST
Day 5 is test day. The make-or-break evaluation of whether or not this solution will work.
TESTING
USERS LIKED IT!
Overall, the feedback was positive! Despite a few minor testing challenges, all of the parents had the right instincts to open the filter categories and make choices within them. They liked the design and saw uses beyond finding a story quickly.
RESULTS
THE DESIGN CONCEPT WORKS
The positive results of the design test indicate that content filtering, along these lines, would greatly improve the experience parents are currently having on the app. It also mostly answered the design challenge questions I laid out at the beginning.
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Can the story search process be made faster while remaining easy?
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Does the technology exist to narrow the search choices by multiple categories?
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Can the search choices remain fluid so the criteria can change over time?
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Can we still keep kids involved in the process of choosing a story?
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How many steps is a parent willing to take to pick a story? STILL NOT SURE
NEXT STEPS
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
Although this filtering concept is a good solution for Tiny Tales and justifies further development, it’s worth exploring if the experience would improve with dynamic filtering. The few struggles that users experienced simply came from the limitations of a not-fully-functional app since the sheer number of possibilities for filtering were too many to simulate in a five-day sprint. Having access to only one specific path (red route) and a predefined order in which the users could make their choices, led to some nuanced confusion and the need for minimal prompting during a few of the test sessions, which could, of course, potentially compromise the results.
That being said, dynamic filtering has become much more common, so we know the technology is available vs. asking the user to make all of their filtering choices in a category and then hit save. This test clearly indicates that users are familiar and comfortable enough with the concept of filtering that if dynamic content filtering were used, it would make the problems they encountered using this test app moot.
REFLECTIONS
WHAT I LEARNED
GV SPRINTS WORK BETTER WITH A TEAM
I’m not sure if it’s because I was learning the process of a GV Sprint while doing this project, or simply because I was working alone (without a team), but I definitely struggled to move as quickly as the prescribed 5 days. My guess is that It was a combination of the two. Having been given some online content to read as my guide to the GV Sprint, there were sections that didn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I bought the GV Sprint book to dig deeper and hopefully better understand the big picture…which did help. But obviously, some of the tasks don't apply when you are working without a team, or take much longer if you can't divide and conquer as is the goal with a GV Sprint. Reconciling that difference from a time perspective was challenging.
One of the most challenging aspects for me was reconciling what happens with a team on Day 1 vs. doing it alone. Reviewing and synthesizing the user research was intuitive to me, so was drawing a map and writing an HMW question. But choosing an overarching goal, the list of questions, and consulting the experts were more difficult, not because the tasks themselves were more difficult, but because I was having trouble figuring out the order of the process and whether or not (or how) to perform some “team” tasks by myself. There were no "experts" like clients or product managers to consult, and no dots necessary for voting… just to name a few. So is the user research supposed to be my “expert”??? Isn’t that the first thing I do? Read the research to get my background information? If that’s the case, how do I “start at the end”???
Likewise on Day 2, for my solo “lightning round”, investigating other companies who deal with similar issues for design inspiration took a while. So did gathering assets for the prototype on Day 4. Dividing and conquering in a team environment, as is typically done, would have come in very handy in both of those situations.
Most importantly, the collaboration and feedback that occur in a team environment can improve and speed up the results. Not only do many hands make light work, but many voices, encourage discussion and consensus, which can only benefit the project and ultimately the client.
In the end, I managed to get it done alone, albeit a little slower. But I think the design concept was a success. I also gained a good understanding of the GV Sprint process and feel confident that I could get through it significantly faster next time, whether my next opportunity is with a team or on my own again.
Thank you for your interest!
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