Key Contributions

Design & Branding, Prototype, Slides


Team

1 Lawyer, 2 Social Workers, and me.


Tools

Pen & Paper, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Google Forms

Timeline

3 Months
Sep '19 - Nov '19



Background

Project Overview

GYB is an early stage startup where I was hired as a designer and catalyst to help bring the project to life and raise funding. This is an app that was aimed to combat online bullying within teenagers and pre-teens.  After research and survey results from teens, the idea was to create an app that helps with defining what healthy and unhealthy communication sounds like.

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My Contributions

I created designs and an interactive prototype for the startup to show during pitching presentation and external stakeholder. I also helped plan and hosted a 100 person Hackathon in a month for GYB with 2 tracks of design and algorithms and $1,000 in prize money. Also, the startup received $75,000 in funds after pitching with the designs and prototype I helped build.

Process

Figuring it all out

Initially, we thought we would make an app about where we could censor harmful things to the teen/pre-teens. After we did research by talking to pre-teens and teenagers, we found out that one of their main concerns was that they did not know what a healthy online relationship looks like so they didn't know if they were in a toxic one online.

After our research and talking to our target audience, we scrapped our initial idea and came up with a new one! Even though we did change our initial idea, our process helped us come up with a good app idea and prototype that landed the startup funding.

Research

Talking to the users

For the research part of our app, we decided to have two parts.

One was talking to our target users directly, teens and pre-teens, with school partnerships.

Another was hosting a hackathon where college students were competing with having pre-teens on-site to help judge the projects.

Key research

User's POV

During our interview with teens throughout the ages of 12 to 18 we asked to find out what problems they had when it came to relationships with their peers and if there are certain phrases or words that are abusive according to them. Also to figure out what type of app they would want to use or not use.

A lot of them answered that they did not want a supervising app that acts like a parent or a teacher. Instead they would like a friend who would give them advice, in a nonjudgemental way.

Hackathon Insights

In recognition of October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we hosted a hackathon, Hack 4 Safety, with pre-teens to look over the hackathon project for ideas.

Hack 4 Safety was a one-day Hackathon where the focus was on the prevention of domestic violence, specifically a phone app for early detection of domestic violence for teens. This event had two tracks, which was algorithms and/or UI/UX design. The event was targeted to college students, specifically in San Jose State University students and there was $1,000 in prizes.

There was 6 teams and three teams per track. The one that one were a game design app for kids in the UI/UX track. The other was a word-detection algorithm, where the user can enter their own set of words that they seem is abusive and the system could detect it.

Persona

Bio
Mila is a middle school student whose parents both
have to work and she needs to have a cell phone to
contact her parents to let them know when she
arrives home or is coming home late due to a
school events.

Frustrations
Mila has social media downloaded on her phone, but sometimes her
friends send her mean comments and can’t tell her parents because
they’re not home or she doesn’t want to cause a scene.

Use Cases
GYB can be used to help her solve her problems with her friend by
alerting her what is abusive and asking her if she needs help with
replying or other things.

Define & Ideate

Problem Finding and Solution

After talking to the youth, we discovered that this app needs to exist to promote healthy communications and identify unhealthy communications.

A lot of youth don’t have experience for healthy relationships so this is an opportunity to show them what healthy looks like.Our target users are ages 11-14 and this can be recruited by word of mouth.

The app will be a friend to the user and help the user out in situations. It will be designed by our users so that they can be comfortable with the app instead of looking as a parent or an adult that supervises the user. It can show them “red flags” in an engaging and non-judgmental way.

Design

Low-Fidelity Prototype

After our research, we came up with a paper prototype and sketched up the features we wanted in the final designs and prototype. We later tested our prototypes and fixed some changes to make the flow smoother and simple.


Later, I picked out colors and fonts for our final designs and made the interactive prototype for our pitching presentation.

Final designs

Design & Prototype

Onboarding

The character selection is to let the user design something that they are more comfortable using. It could be an animal or a made-up character rather than a human. The goal is to pick a character that they can trust.

Interactions

There is an option where the user can connect the app with their other social apps. This will allow the app to step in when they detect unhealthy behavior.



"Red Flags"

When it detects words or phrases that may be unhealthy or manipulative to the user, it can flag the text and see if the user wants help or suggestions.



IMPACT

Get ready to unleash the app awesomeness!

Our startup presented the project pitch and designs to judges at an event by Reimagine Labs, which is a collaboration between Blue Shield of California Foundation and Gobee Group. During the pitch, 9 out of 10 people got through the whole flow of prototype for our app.

And so GYB received funds at $75,000 for 6 months to keep it running and see what impact it makes! The following year GYB decided to partner with schools and hire developers to make the app come to life!

This was exciting news for us and all our hard work paid off. Even though I was asked to continue with the startup, I decided to explore new opportunities, but still keeping in touch! It was an amazing experience to be the only UI UX Designer and design for pre-teens to keep them protected from online bullying.

Your exceptional work as the sole UI/UX Designer played a pivotal role in securing $75,000 in funding for our startup at the Reimagine Labs event. While you've decided to explore new opportunities, your significant contribution to protecting pre-teens from online bullying has left a lasting impact, and we wish you continued success in your endeavors.

Your exceptional work as the sole UI/UX Designer played a pivotal role in securing $75,000 in funding for our startup at the Reimagine Labs event. While you've decided to explore new opportunities, your significant contribution to protecting pre-teens from online bullying has left a lasting impact, and we wish you continued success in your endeavors.

Your exceptional work as the sole UI/UX Designer played a pivotal role in securing $75,000 in funding for our startup at the Reimagine Labs event. While you've decided to explore new opportunities, your significant contribution to protecting pre-teens from online bullying has left a lasting impact, and we wish you continued success in your endeavors.

Frances Ho

Product Manager

& Attorney

Frances Ho

Product Manager

& Attorney

Frances Ho

Product Manager

& Attorney