Puberry is an educational app that uses gamified learning to teach children about puberty.
It aims to make learning about puberty fun, while removing the stigma attached to puberty education.
The app features games, lessons, customizable avatars, emotion tracking, period tracking, and more...
Puberry
MY ROLE
DURATION
PLATFORM
TEAM
3 Weeks
UX Designer
Graphic Designer
Mobile App
Meg Beauregard
Victoria Lora
Erin Pak
Below is my case study. It documents my journey through the double diamond from research all the way to Puberrys final product. It details insights and justifications for methods used and designs created.
However, if you prefer to skip to the "good stuff," just use the button below to jump to view the final product!
Research
Puberry came to my team having already done some primary research. The key findings are below:
Parents and teachers report inconsistent curriculum and lack of structure surrounding teaching puberty
0% of current and past students interviewed reported positive experiences learning about puberty
Children can be embarrassed to ask adults about puberty, and adults dont know when to bring it up
Puberry came to us with an initial target user base, eight to eighteen year olds. This was a bit wide for our given timeline.
To narrow it down, we conducted secondary research. We discovered that the CDC recommends puberty curriculum to begin at grades three to five.
Using this research, we narrowed down our target users to be third through fifth graders.
There are currently no apps on the market that aim to do exactly what Puberry aims for. So we decided to look into 3 of the most popular period tracking apps, as well as some popular gamified learning apps. Our research shows that...
Data from the client
Target User Research
Feature Inventory
Gamified Apps Utilize:
Daily Usage Streaks
Customizable Avatars
Notifications
Period Trackers Lack:
Period Education
Mood Tracking
Age Specific Content
PERSONA
Let's Meet Stella
Age - 10
Occupation - 5th grader
Family - Lives with parents, younger brother and 2 fish
Dream Job - Fashion Designer
Frustrations:
Peers laugh at each other’s changing bodies.
Feels too embarrassed to talk to her parents about changes to her body.
Other girls at school have gotten their period but she’s not confident about what it is.
Goals/Needs:
Wants to know what to do when her period comes.
Curious what changes will happen to her body.
Seeking a safe place to talk about what changes she’s noticing.
Stella Hale is a 5th grader at Hawthorne Elementary School. She gets excited to go to school so she can see her friends. Recently, her classmates have been making comments about people’s changing bodies. Stella laughs along but is worried about her body changes.
Her friend Molly recently got her period. She was afraid to ask her teacher about it in case her classmates laughed at her. She wants to know when she’s going to get her period and what she should do when it comes. She’s heard there’s blood and is scared it will hurt.
Journey Map
The journey map solidified the idea that puberty can be a very difficult and anxiety-inducing time for children like Stella. We moved forward knowing Puberry had to become the resource that would keep kids from feeling alone and without information they trust.
THE CHALLENGE
Stella needs a safe and judgment-free way to learn about puberty in order to feel comfortable about the changes to her body and avoid the negative perceptions that come with lack of information.
THE DESIGN PHASE
The Clients Original Files
Here you see the very first rough draft of Puberry. A style guide had not been finalized and the mockups were low-fidelity.
A lot of inspiration was taken from these original wireframes, however, it was clear from our research we needed to make a lot of changes to make the app both appealing and understandable to younger children.
Creating the Style Guide
Colors, Typography, & Navigation
I created this cohesive berry and emoji family to match the style of the Blueberry sketch they had provided initially.
Visual Design
Once we narrowed in on Stella’s main problem, we used the current prototype and research as our launching point. We created user flows, sketches, and many iterations of mid-fidelity Wireframes with 3 goals in mind.
Build out the Game Home Page and the Check In/Calendar features. These were highlighted as high-priority features from the Puberry Team and they are the most foundational features kids need to start using the app.
Rewrite questions and add visuals to make the app appropriate for the target user. Exciting visuals would help draw and keep users. Clear text would help users best navigate through the app with minimal confusion. This is important since our app users are kids who may not be as familiar with certain terms.
We wanted to build out Puberry’s brand style. The Puberry team had ideas of engaging and kid-friendly colors, fonts, and animated fruit. We wanted to bring those ideas onto their app so kids would have a delightful and memorable experience that brings them back to Puberry again and again.
Mid-Fi Iterations
USABILITY TESTING
We conducted 6 usability tests using our Mid-Fi prototype. Here are our main findings:
The gamified lessons were much easier to digest than how participants were learning in their daily life. Plus, the added incentive of a point system was liked by all the participants.
Everyone liked getting a character to customize.
Participants really liked the vibrant colors of the app.
The emotion tracker wasn’t intuitive for the younger participants to find but the concept of an emotion tracker and emojis representing their mood were enjoyed by all, and some even noted that they would return to the app just to use it.
With that feedback, we focused on making the purpose of the emotion tracker easier to understand.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
Onboarding
Gameplay
Accessory Shop
Log In & Period Tracker Mode
We begin in onboarding. Here, Stella creates an account, chooses her berry avatar, inputs her feelings, and watches the quick onboarding video that explains the app in kid-friendly language!
Keeping true to the needs and wants of Stella was a top priority throughout development. To ensure the app would solve the frustrations she faced, we made sure to run through the prototype from her perspective.
Follow along to see how Stella navigates through Puberry on her puberty journey!
Once onboarding has completed, Stella arrives at the home page. This will be the home base for her gameplay and learning. She reads her first lesson and eagerly clicks on the game that has unlocked. Once completed, Raspberry congratulates her on earning 60 lemons!
Fast forward a month, and Stella has finally gotten her period! She has gained knowledge about periods from her gameplay, and feels prepared and excited to have finally gotten hers!
Stella logs into the app, completes her mood input, and heads straight to her profile to turn on period tracking mode!