Sex Education for Gen-Z & Gen-T pt. II
A case study using Design Thinking methodology in two parts
This is the second and final part of the project. You can find the first part here
Before explaining the prototyping process, let’s make a quick recap of the main goal of our app, explained through a Value Proposal:
Our multi-device app is focused on video media containing tutorials, educational talks, interviews and documentaries. In addition, our users will have a forum and a chat moderated and conducted by medical professionals to assist them personally and, more important, anonymously. This app is oriented to kids and teens between 6 and 24 years along with parents. The content will be adapted for every age range (6 to 12, and 13 to 24), and the parents will have access to the video media, with no chance of entering the anonymous forum or any chat.
Part II-A: Prototype
Previous to design the app, we translated our Storyboard into an User-Flow, to see how Adrián (our 17 years old Persona) could have used our app in his scenario.
This is the expected use of our app in his story, but we need to imagine all the possible uses of our app: so here comes the Task-Flow, which will help us to design the Wireframes, and later, the prototype.
Even we instantly decided to develop the prototype for the 13–24 target (purple path, as shown in the Task-flow above), the main issue was the how. Approaching Sex & Emotional Education (from now on SEd) to this target while making an interesting and juvenile Look & Feel is not easy. We chose purple and yellow as the main colors to get this teen look, along with a white background to give it a more formal and reliable feel.
While designing the prototype, we were kind of blocked thinking in a name for the app, but one morning Alex came up with an amazing idea that got us at the first moment: catchapp, mixing the concepts catch up with, obviously, app.
The logo and/or icon for it was way more difficult to design. Nonetheless, compared with the long and expensive costs that designing usually suppose to real companies, the result is quite satisfactory thanks to a really fast decision-making process inside the team.
We chose the circle arrows as the well-known symbol of update, or in our case being up to date. The position of both of them means the mutual feedback of the app between users and/or experts. Also, the slight lean of them, makes the upper arrow to look like the letter C of catchapp. The fading effect was inspired by the Instagram icon made by Ian Spalter (you can know more about how he did it in Netflix’s The Abstract documentary series).
So, before getting right into the User Tests, here is a quick view of the app :)
Part II-B: User Tests
For this part, we used the Guerrilla Testing technique with 6 youngsters between 16–17 years old.
The feedback we received from them was very valuable. Here is a recap on how they behave with catchapp and how they completed the tasks we asked to do:
As you can see, the main pain-point was the use of the Chatbot we integrated, mostly because they don’t know what it is. But, after telling them that this was kind of Siri or Alexa but texting, they understood the usability of it.
Main Pain-points:
- General confusion regarding the Chatbot and its role in the app.
- Getting to the forum and leaving a message was not intuitive.
- Sometimes navigation was not fluid, but expected due to being a prototype.
Usability accomplishments:
- Going to user profile and video favorites.
- Watching a video.
- Starting a chat with a Psychologist.
Overall user comments about catchapp:
- Useful application.
- Reliable and safe for this kind of subject, most than other websites.
- Easy and comfortable use.
- This could help a lot because spans a lot of Sex and Emotional issues of teens of their age.
As we did in the previous Design Sprint project, we took all this feedback and fixed some of the issues and redesigned some parts in order to make it look more juvenile and increase its usability.
Bonus! A video of the implemented redesign and new assets after the user tests and their feedback:
Final comments:
Even feeling really frustrated in many moments (probably something my team-mates also felt during the project length) and sometimes thinking some of the processes where useless, the final results showed me the efficiency of the Design Thinking methodology, firstly developed and implemented in the 1990s by design disruptors based in Stanford, California, IDEO.
While Design Sprint technique is really useful for small and fast results, Design Thinking is the way to create from scratch and have successful results. The research process makes you really know your potential user and its behavior, which increases the predictability of your final design.
Only through real stories we can design something timeless and focused on people, a thing we should never forget: we design for people.
And, as I said in the first part of this project, this could not be made without the beautiful and hard-working friends of the project team, source of many good ideas and funny moments working together (including helping me getting through a rough day), are Sonia Guillén, Alex Velasco Mesas and Isabella D'Ippoliti. They worked really really really hard on this, and I’m thankful and super-proud of them and the outcome: we accomplished so much in a so little time.
Thanks to our teachers/guides/shamans Pere Feliu and Núria Gomez, from the NEOLAND UX/UI Bootcamp in Barcelona.
PS: I personally think all of us learned a lot about Generation-Z and Gen-T, and we will keep with us many inputs in our day-to-day. I hope you also do.
Thanks for reading :)
