RockstarKids
Product Details
Company Type
Startup
Industry
Productivity, Kids
Product Type
Mobile App
Services
UX Design, UI Design, Product Strategy & Design Workshop
Deliverables
Wireframes, High Fidelity Designs, Design System
Discovery
RockstarKids has an existing web app, but it has significant limitations when it comes to providing the guidance and support needed to keep kids focused. It’s hard to use on-the-go, can’t notify kids when tasks are due, and is therefore hard to keep up with for busy families. Other pain points we identified included a better, more efficient onboarding process, a way to add another parent or guardian to the family’s account, and a more engaging product for kids.
The mobile app allows kids to see & update their schedule from anywhere and get reminders when it’s time to brush their teeth or do their homework. Consistency is vital for helping kids learn new behaviors. Additionally, kids can keep an eye on how many coins they’ve earned at any time – and once they’ve earned enough, they can claim a prize!
Design
Designing for kids has unique challenges. For RockstarKids, our primary age categories were 6-8, 9-12, and 12+. Because we’re designing for all age groups, we have to have the youngest age group top-of-mind.
For this project, our design principles were:
- Limiting navigation, not too many buttons or flows.
- Limiting focus to one primary object at a time.
- Using words recognized by early readers.
- Using bright and bold colors attract children’s attention to the screen and help them focus on the activity.
- Heavy use of pictures helps them understand the context.
We chose Poppins for the typeface because it met the following requirements for child-friendly fonts:
- The typeface should have a warm, friendly look with simple, generous letter shapes.
- The counters should be rounded and open, not angular or rectangular.
- Typefaces with larger x-heights are generally easier to read than those with short x-heights, especially in the case of children.
- For very young readers, designs should be with one-story ‘a’s and ‘g’s (also called infant characters) since these are the lowercase shapes preschool and school-age children learn to write.
- Avoid decorative and complex fonts to embrace realistic letter shapes.
In addition, we provided a wide range of themes and avatars so that kids could personalize their experience in the app in a way that reflects their interests. Our initial set of themes included the jungle, space, ocean, monsters, rainbows, and dinosaurs.