ROLE
UX Content Strategist
DURATION
5 weeks
(May- June 2023)
TEAM
Emily L.
Kristianne J.
Erin C.
Lerin O.
Rossana W.
Nimra E. (myself)
DELIVERABLES
Content guidelines
UX writing
Name for the app
Handoff document
Client demo
PROBLEM
Students diagnosed with ADHD encounter challenges in traditional math education settings and with current math curriculum.
The structured and sequential nature of traditional math instruction can pose difficulties for individuals with ADHD, as they may struggle with maintaining focus, sustaining attention, and staying organized throughout the learning process. Tasks requiring sustained mental effort, such as complex problem-solving or memorization of mathematical procedures, can be particularly challenging for these students. Additionally, the fast-paced nature of many math classrooms may exacerbate feelings of overwhelm and frustration, leading to decreased engagement and performance
SOLUTION
‘Mindful Digits’ aims to provide students with the ability to customize their learning experience to best suit their individual learning styles, needs, and preferences, thereby leaving them feeling more confident and empowered.
The key objectives that the team started out with were:
Simplify, condense, and ensure clarity in content to cater to the learning requirements of students with ADHD.
Incorporate gamification into the app to make the overall learning experience more fun and engaging
Tailor the app's voice to resonate with its primary user base, primarily comprising students with ADHD
Enable the students to customize their learning experience based on their needs and preferences
We promptly started crafting the content guidelines to serve as a reference for future project phases, aiming to maintain consistency, establish a brand identity, and ensure clear communication and accessibility for users.
With every piece of content, we aimed to:
View full content guidelines here.
EDUCATE
EMPOWER
RESPECT
CONTENT GUIDELINES
Educate learners about mathemetical concepts in a manner that is comprehensible and adaptable to their individual learning style.
Encourage the learner to feel confident and take ownership of their learning journey.
Interact with learners respectfully, employing communication that is thoughtful, inclusive and not too childish.
After gathering insights from the research team, we gained a clear understanding of some of the most common pain points experienced by students with ADHD as they learn math concepts in a traditional classroom. With this data in hand, we endeavored to develop a tone of voice that best suited our app.
Research Insights
Slow at comprehending concepts
VOICE QUALITIES
Experience frustration with practicing/repeating of concepts
Feel anxious about completing tasks within time constraints
Get easily distracted by external stimuli or location
Struggling with setting priorities and controlling impulses
Sensitive to failure/rejection
Voice Quality
Patient
Encouraging
Conversational
Enthusiastic
Inviting
Relatable
BRAND PERSONALITY
When considering our brand personality, we pondered: Who do we aspire to be? Figures like Bill Nye, Steve Irwin, and Alton Sterling came to mind. They exude enthusiasm for their subjects and are deeply committed to ensuring that viewers or learners are fully engaged with them.
TONE MAP
To ensure a consistent and supportive experience throughout users' learning journeys, we developed a tone map for our app. This map would guide the tone adjustments according to users' progress, ensuring clarity and engagement across all content areas.
UX WRITING
Based on existing reports from our research team and secondary research into math curricula designed for children with ADHD, we found that our content guidelines provided a solid foundation for integration into the design team's prototypes. Through collaboration, we refined copy, replaced placeholder text, and ensured consistency in call-to-action buttons. Furthermore, we supported the research team's usability tests by updating and refining all copy within low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes.
Updated the copy that followed the app’s voice qualities of being enthusiastic and inviting.
Statements that were previously too wordy were revised for conciseness, aiming to prevent the user from feeling overwhelmed.
We incorporated a heading and concise summary to elucidate the potential emotions of users, ensuring that the tone remained uplifting.
Enhanced readability by aligning the formatting to the left, ensuring consistency with other screens. Additionally, we infused a more playful tone into the headings for added engagement.
We enhanced clarity by adding brief descriptions and examples to all personalized features in the settings, ensuring users understand their functionality and purpose.
NAMING OF THE APP
Initially, the app was named "All Minds Math," but it was found that this name was already in use by another app. Consequently, the Content team was tasked with discovering a new name for the app. We organized several collaborative working sessions, inviting all teams and shadowers to participate in brainstorming new name ideas. Following discussions with the Phase 1 project leads, it was decided that the name should prioritize math rather than general education. Subsequently, we generated a list of five final name options and facilitated a voting process among all teams to determine the favorite name.
‘Mindful Digits’ won the voting and was selected as the application's new name.
SUMMARY
What went well
Teacher insight: Having teachers onboard, coupled with my prior experience as a teacher, proved invaluable in shaping the content to meet the needs of our users effectively.
Learning experience: This role marked my first foray into UX content strategy, offering a wealth of learning opportunities. From developing content guidelines to conducting content audits and optimizing through research and testing, the experience was rich with learning and growth.
Challenges
Joining midway: One significant challenge our team encountered was joining the project halfway through its development cycle, specifically in sprint 4 out of 8. This posed a time constraint, requiring us to expedite our efforts to catch up with the progress of other teams.
Integration efforts: To mitigate the challenge of joining midway, we took proactive steps to integrate ourselves into the ongoing research and design processes. This involved participating in research and design meetings each week, allowing us to align with the project's objectives, understand existing insights, and contribute effectively despite the time constraints.
Future Steps
Develop lesson structures (i.e. how many problems, types of problems, topics)
Create content for the guided lesson videos
Develop a narrative for Math Buddy
Continue to determine approved and unapproved content (i.e. phrases/words/tones)