Findme findme
An interactive and customisable story book.
Starting out
Speaking to the founder-and-mother of the app, I heard about the first hand experience she has with her own kids and her network of other parents. She wanted to solve the problem she faced of seeing her kids at unease with family or friends that aren’t frequently present in their lives due to distance.
We, along with the project manager brainstormed ways we could solve this as well as capturing key brand values and potential selling points. Armed with these shared ideas buzzing around, I independently researched what was out there, about the types of apps (and lack of) were good examples that resembled our ideas.
Moving ideas
I distilled some of the ideas considering what was already on the market and developed a few sketched concepts. I worked with client and development team to refine this into what was most technically feasible especially given the time constraints we were facing.
After agreeing on an initial concept to follow through with, I mapped out the structure of the app at a high level overview to break further into a flow, this meant dev could get started and I could start looking at the screens.
Visual development
The direction of the app being taking on an interactive story book concept, there’s minimal screens to design for the UI however, a lot of scenes within the story to create. As the client comes up with the stories I quickly research, conceptualise, and develop characters and scenes for the book.
With development moving quickly I need to produce the brand; logo, colours, type to start inputting visual design on the screens. I chose the primary colour with diversity and gender neutrality in mind. I made the interface with space and large touch points being self explanatory for users parents and children.
Interfaces
I made a tappable prototype around the stories and with a central blank template putting in stories as I complete them. The client would would continuously guérilla test with her children and families she’d meet at school and playgroup with informal reports back on friction, opportunities and moments of surprise.
After a marathon of illustration work covering seven themed stories all with 6 individual scenes, Findme findme was released on the App Store. Following the feedback and appetite from users, I extended the journey for purchasing the physical copy of the custom books.
