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Role
UX Designer, responsible for all aspects from beginning to end.Duration
August 2023 - December 2023
The Product
The Product
Write Much is a tool designed to help teenagers learn about and practice creative writing. Aside from being educational, it creates an active community that brings young people together through a shared interest. The target audience is for anyone ranging from 13 to 18 years old regardless of gender.
The Problem
The Problem
Depression and anxiety among American teenagers is persistent. Writing can be a powerful and positive outlet for negative feelings. However, there’s too few creative writing tools out there that are well-rounded enough to be a singular creative outlet for those that may need one.
The Goal
The Goal
Design an app that is a “one stop shop” for resources, inspiration, and community in an effort to offer creative writing as an outlet to those affected by depression and/or anxiety while avoiding the pitfalls of popular social media.
Research
Research
Initial research involved competitive audits and developing two unique personas. Both personas ensured the designs needed to be accessible and engaging enough for experienced writers and newbies alike.
Ideation
Ideation
Part of the ideation phase was performing a couple Crazy Eights exercises to come up with unique and interesting features, such as a "generator" page for randomizing specified topics to use in your writing or the ability to add your own constraints to existing writing prompts.
Afterwards, extra ideas not related to any exercises were jotted down and sketched out on an additional piece of paper for later use.
Wireframes
Wireframes
Paper wireframes were drawn out for every major screen that users would be interacting with then converted to digital wireframes.
Digitial versions allowed further specifications to be made, such as labeling what buttons would be included on each screen.
Before usability study (left) and after (right). Changes depict the removal of who is following the user to avoid the toxicity of wanting followers and the inclusion of customizable goals and interests that can be used to connect with other writers.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
Low-Fidelity Prototype
Feedback following the low-fidelity usability study led to some minor iterations of existing screens and the creation of entirely new ones.
Seen to the left are changes made to the Profile page based on user feedback.
View the complete low-fidelity prototype.
Mockups and High-Fidelity Prototype
Mockups and High-Fidelity Prototype
The information architecture was created at the same time as the high-fidelity mockups. Numerous versions of similar components were made to supplement slight changes to designs.
Careful consideration was also given to the creation of the project's logo, color scheme, and style to convey an appropriate feel.
Using orange as the main color represents creativity while the final logo lends a playful tone to the app.
View the complete high-fidelity prototype.
Responsive Design Sitemap
Responsive Design Sitemap
To move forward with responsive design for the desktop version, a sitemap helped in determining what would be present in the navigation bar. The same features were included so the desktop version would be just as functional as the mobile and tablet versions, but a couple other tabs were added, aimed toward the parents and/or teachers of the target users who would likely be using the desktop versions in a home or classroom setting.
From the below images you can see an example of how the top navigation bar changed to accommodate screen variations.
Tablet (left) and desktop (right) display the Prompt Confirmation pages.
Final Designs
Final Designs
This project resulted in three prototypes of various sizes: mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
From a design standpoint, I learned how to implement more advanced overlay techniques and how to create animated carousels. The new overlays are present in the desktop version's navigation bar and the animated carousels included in all three versions. It took some extra time to learn how to set them up properly, but the end result was worth the effort. I also learned how important and useful sitemaps can be, even when another version of the design exists as a different size.
Want to learn more about this project? View the in-depth Write Much case study.
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