OVERVIEW

EMOTIONAL INTELIGENCE

Mimi is an electronic life coach for 3 to 6-year-olds, that teaches emotional intelligence and life skills through game-based learning.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has been identified by the world’s leading educational authorities as one of the most critical skills for the future – yet there was no systematic way to educate children in this field.

The ideal age to educate EQ skills is in children aged 3 to 6: physically the brain is 90% developed by the age of 6, and psychologically children have made fundamental decisions about life and their role in it by the same age.

Gaming is the ideal medium to reach and engage a 3 to 6-year-old audience. Virtually all children play electronic games and enjoy doing so, so we have created a fun gaming experience, accessed via an App, that very subtly & covertly educates children via play.

PROBLEM

HELP, WE HAVE CRAZY DEADLINE

New to the market product with no point of reference.

Despite the importance of EQ, perhaps surprisingly there was no easily accessible, structured system or framework available. EQ development is at best a random experience, with the majority of children never having the opportunity to learn about this most critical of life skills. This meant that there were no readily available templates or reference points on how the product should be designed and structured. User testing and feedback were going to be key.

KICK OFF

1,2,3...

This was the first product I had to design for such a young audience. In the beginning, I started my research by downloading 50+ children's apps and playing with each one of them. These games gave me a good background on the most popular apps out there and the UX/UI commonalities specific to this age group. The founding team of the project was also very engaged. They set a very aggressive timeline to launch the product from scratch in just 3 months and were prepared to engage with the design process continuously, which has really sped up the decision process.

PROCESS

RESEARCH

The biggest challenge is that there was simply no other product like this to take as a reference point. There were simply no apps on the market designed to help children learn emotional intelligence skills. So both primary and secondary research was fundamental. I was always used to a clean minimalistic design, but very quickly I realised that even that wasn't enough. When designing for a 3-6 year all audience, there is no such thing as an oversimplification. Simple choice architecture, user focus and engagement are critical.

WIREFRAMES

Due to the crazy short deadline, we needed to jump straight to wireframe design.

RESULTS

WE DID IT!

We were able to submit the development ready design within 4 weeks of beginning the work on the project, including Logo Design, Brand Book, User flows and all UI screens. The project was subsequently launched within 3 months from the initiation. The first large scale influencer campaign was launched just 2 weeks after the project launch which used the Brand Book and the PR design guidelines that we developed. We were then able to immediately start testing the registration/subscription conversion funnel to iteratively improve the design.

LESSONS LEARNED

FAST DEVELOPMENT AND HANDING PRODUCT TO CUSTOMERS

Fast development requires fast decision making

The project development was optimised for speed under the direction of the client - from idea to launch in just 3 months. The successful and timely launch was possible due to very close ongoing work between the UX/UI team and the client and the quick decision approval process on the project.

Getting the product in the hands of the customer is the best research

As there were no comparable products on the market there was a risk of falling into analysis paralysis during the project initiation. Getting the product in the hands of the user as quickly as possible was extremely beneficial. Children 3-6 are the biggest critics. If they stop using the product they never start again. Being able to observe the experience early has allowed us to iterate very quickly.