kid power unites

A desktop mobile site for kids empowering other kids

*Note all images used in prototype are from Getty Images

The Project

KPU is a desktop website where parent and child can engage together and learn the meaning of philanthropy , while also helping others that are in need.

My role

UX Designer

Team members

Heather Jansen, Jessie Brandfield (research stages)

Timeline

2 weeks (team) 4 weeks (solo - to end product)

view prototype

Tools & Methods

Research surveys, create task flows, user journey and interior architecture, develop hi-fidelity mockups for desktop design, website brand design

the Challenge

How to create a product that engages both parent and child, instilling the importance of philanthropy to future generations

A mother and a founder, the client wanted to create a platform where parents can easily teach children the importance of giving to those in the underserved community. Part of the challenge was creating a site that kept anonymity and safety of those on the receiving end, while learning about their story.

Design Process

Understanding the business & user needs, we first needed to conduct research on how people first are motivated to give to others.

Survey Says

60%

Children understand what charities are

46%

Prefer to give to a person rather than a charity

85%

Families donate via campaign drives

70%

Are interested in seeing personal wishlist and learning their story

So Who's the User?

Although there were many things to consider regarding who the users are, the parent, the child, and the recipient -

We focused on the main user, the parent, who would encourage the secondary user - their children in navigating through the website.

Competitive Analysis

Through Direct & Indirect competitors, some thoughts that occurred are

What features are common throughout these sites
What features can be incorporated into MVP prototype
What makes certain sites more successful than others

Make-A-Wish

Their website explained who is eligible for referral and who is able to refer them.

Mighty

Their website made a clear distinction between parent and child, and how to create a kid-friendly user site with parent supervision.

UI Design

The interior architecture was split into these components.

Main pages served as the base for the parent, busy philanthropist
Secondary pages served to inform the licensed individuals to help sign up recipients of those gifts
Tertiary pages comprised of what other information or questions that users may have

Ideate & Design

A concept board was created after speaking with the founder of the what type they envisioned this business to look like, by taking key words
- receive healing for children to know it's ok to ask for help
- helping to bond from parent and child, and from one child to another
- teaching their children the value of philanthropy
- empowering children to feel like superhero understanding that they made a difference in someone's life

Through a series of sketches and design iterations, we focused our MVP for the donor to navigate through the site to be able to purchase a gift with adult supervision.
Recipient information cards on the website, included a story of who they are and what gift they would like. Basic information regarding the product, price, and what the gift for was also integrated into these cards.

Mobile Wireframes

Our first design sprint, we decided to start with mobile design and created wireframe prototypes and initiate first round of testing

We designed for 2 task flows
- Flow 1 - Parent/child user to search for gift to give
- Flow 2 - For professionals to upload a recipient to receive gifts

After the first round of testing, users commented regarding the lack of interaction with their children on their mobile phones.

With this, we decided to focus on desktop application of the site rather than mobile application for the MVP.

The homepage focuses on specific features

How to look for a gift
How to refer a child
How to donate

Desktop Hi-Fi Prototype

Design Pages

When looking for a gift, the user can filter by which type of gift they want to look for
User Feedback:
- It would be nice to be able to write a message to the person they are sending a gift to to create a more interactive platform
- Maybe have a more robust search filter feature: to include by age, budget, hobbies, enhancing the interactive way children can engage with the site (almost like a game)

MVP included features for referral process
- Licensed individuals such as case workers, teachers, doctors can sign recipients with the consent of their guardians/parents.
- Donation page was also included as to help fund and purchase gifts for children who wanted a gift before specific events in their life - like birthdays, holidays, and back to school gifts.

Insights & Next Steps

In our initial meeting with the founder, she had wanted to link gifts from Amazon to be built into her MVP. With that, personal and safety information regarding children became a problem. A workaround suggestion was to partner with smaller local businesses to sell their products on their website.
We also wanted to create a dashboard for referrers, so that they can keep track of who they referred and if that recipient received their gift on time. After interviewing several professionals, we decided to not integrate that feature into our MVP as it was impractical for such case workers to add additional work that they may not have time for.
We initially designed with mobile in mind, but after our initial round of testing, decided against it as we wanted this site to engage parent and child to work together in helping others and a mobile experience did not adhere those goals.
For next steps, we would really like to create a more robust filter section and create a more interactive search feature so it's more pleasant for children to engage, almost like a gaming experience. We would also like to create a similar set up for recipients being referred by professionals, making it a an engaging activity where both parties participate in setting up their account.