Codaflix is an e-learning application that helps to introduce and teach tech skills like coding to kids. The app introduces kids to core concepts of technology while making it fun and captivating for them.
"Your kids can become the next youngest tech CEO if they start early".
The client, 9jacodekids is a leading tech school that teaches coding to kids and teens in Nigeria. They sought to build an online learning application for their students and reach a wider audience. My goal was to work with the team to create a mobile product for kids to learn tech skills like coding taught by the school.
9jacodekids have previously relied on traditional physical classes to teach coding to their students. However, due to the outbreak of COVID, the company had to adapt its methods and switch to online learning. There were no physical meetings during that time, and everything had to be online.
The school needed a platform to continue providing education to their students and considered various options. The school used different services like zoom to conduct online live classes. It wasn't convenient hence the need to build their own.
The CEO decided to work with this option because it would give complete freedom on how the courses are being taught and introduce creative ways to engage the kids. A mobile application would not only advertise the company but would also help generate revenue.
It is noteworthy that numerous studies show that children are introduced to core concepts of programming as early as seven years old. However, it is also important to note that kids learn better by doing fun stuff like games. Therefore, most programming apps for kids are gamified.
Designs for kids require a different approach from adults because their cognitive skills are still developing, so their reasoning abilities are weaker than those of adults. To design and build an application intended for kids, you must consider some factors like the age group and their emotions. Quality and intensive early childhood education can positively affect a child by creating an early interest in exploring programming
We created a list of "How Might We" questions to help us align our user tasks and goals:
I interviewed some of the school students aiming to gain valuable insights. We approached the interviews by asking these students how they felt about online learning. Curious about the efficiency of online learning, our main aim was to understand their motivations, triggers and abilities. From this, we hoped to gain insight into their basic decision-making process.
Brainstorming on elements of successful kids' learning applications, we asked the following:
What makes online learning online easy? What activities are the students curious about? How can we pull this off in our app? What are some other needs, interests and issues when kids learn online?
The interviews helped get leads on other competitive apps that these students were either currently using or had previously tried before. We discovered apps like Kodable, Lightbot, Daisy the Dinosaur and Scratch Jnr.
Synthesizing the data from the interviews enabled us to identify the following user behaviour patterns:
Based on the data I collected, I created an ideal user flow as to how I imagined the app to pan out and what the desired user experience would entail. It later developed into a journey map, which captured the user’s journey and emotional results with each touchpoint they experience within the app.
After deciding which actions and features were crucial and beneficial, I began sketching my initial thoughts on how the app would look like based on these conclusions. I also designed a sitemap around these conclusions. Our goal was to create a seamless experience for the target users by emphasizing simplicity while maintaining a balance between the pre-recorded lessons and assessments on the app.
Low fidelity wireframes helped us to create the frame of what we wanted our app to look like.
I designed high fidelity prototype of the application with all the necessary interactions. High fidelity wireframes appear and function as similar as possible to the product that will be used.
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At first, the app was to be used by the school to help teach their students. The school would make programming lessons as videos for their students to watch and learn from, but we soon realized that students might not understand the material as well as we thought. We did our research and found that students learn better from interactive content.
After testing the app with a few students, we realized that the purpose was too limited. Kids can't learn effectively like this. We had a few recommendations, and we understood we needed to improve the app.
I redesigned the flow with this change to ensure online classes were more fun for the users. I pulled user interface inspiration from popular kids learning apps to study how they guide users through complicated journeys.
The Codaflix app is constantly evolving, and there's always more to explore. We're iterating and introducing new features and improvements. For example, we're partnering with other tech schools with content for the platform. We're also uncovering other skills that kids can learn. These are just some of the things we're working on. So check back often, and in the meantime, feel free to explore the current prototype of the app by clicking 'Explore the App' below.
I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project as it was rewarding, involved a ton of research, and required careful interaction work. I came away from it with several important insights about product development and business processes, chief among them being: Starting small is perfectly fine. You don't have to try to do everything all at once. Prioritizing user experience is more important than cramming in lots of features. And finally, don't get too attached to any one idea. We went through a lot of different versions of Codaflix before arriving at a working model, and it wasn't a perfect replica of the original idea.