Nosolofilms: boosting critical thinking between kids through high quality short films

Project duration

February 2021 – ongoing

Context of the project

Side project (non-profit)

Role

Product Designer, end-to-end

Responsibilities

This is an end-to-end project where I conducted interviews, designed digital wireframes, developed low and high-fidelity prototypes and improved the product based on quantitative data. All of this, integrating digital accessibility in every step of the process.

Nosolofilms is a nonprofit organization based in Spain.

Initially, its focus was on creating short movies to share human rights vulnerations in Asia and Africa. However, with the pandemic the value proposition had to shift.

This case study explores the creation of a platform MVP to share high quality short films and provide educational resources to be used in schools.

The problem

Nowadays, kids are used to short format content that is direct and engaging. Due to different factors, they are losing the ability to think critically and generate their own ideas.

The objective

Create a platform to share high quality short films with related educational resources to help teachers include innovative and engaging resources in class.

Main pain point

Teachers lack innovative and engaging resources to boost critical thinking for complex topics and work on Sustainable development goals (SDG)

Research

EXPLORATORY USER RESEARCH AND PERSONA CREATION

The Nosolofilms team is composed by teachers that provided key insights that helped defining our target persona.
The objective of this activity was to create empathy and understand the main needs and pain points.

Belén, 34 year-old primary school teacher from Madrid

Needs:

  • Find stories that give voice to different realities.
  • Find innovative resources for different school subjects.
  • Share learnings with other teachers.

Pain points:

  • Adapt educational resources to the different age groups.
  • Primary school kids have a short attention span.

Benchmarking

Our initial research had to include users but also an analysis of the main competitors and their value propositions.
The objective of this analysis was to identify gaps in the competitors value propositions so that Nosolofilms could provide a differential value.

Ideation and definition

brainstorming and prioritizing functionalities for the mvp

Once we understood teachers’ needs and pain points and the value proposition of the competitors, we were able to brainstorm ideas and functionalities to include in our initial MVP.

After the brainstorming, we worked together on a value/effort matrix to help us identify the priorities for the MVP.

Wireframing

Our two priorities for the low fidelity designs were:

  • Short movie detail page that should also include educational resources.
  • Platform landing page that should explain the platform as concise and direct as possible to capture teachers’ attention and lead them to start using our resources.

The wireframes already considered accessibility considerations such as heading hierarchy, meaningful sequence of interactive elements or interactions with different assistive technologies.

Design

Definition of brand identity

I created the logo based on three core principles or topics: critical thinking, sustainability and short films.
Later on, I developed the brand identity: typography, colours, usage, etc.
Once the brand identity was defined, I created the mockups considering the brand guidelines.

Compass

As a symbol for critical thinking. It guides but does not offer a direct solution.

SDG

The Sustainable development goals seek equality for all people.

Anaglyph

As a symbol of movies. An anaglyph is a 2D image that can simulate 3 dimensions when seen with special glasses.

Accessibility had to be embedded in every step of the process. Thus, I created an accessible colour palette defining which colour could be combined based on their contrast ratio.

Platform release and analytics

When the mockups were finalized we transformed those into a working website using the Worpress website builder.

Then, we started monitoring the data analytics dashboard to identify improvements.

Two KPIs made us move into a mockup redesign:

  • High bounce rate.
  • Low session duration.

Mockups design & iteration

After the release, I conducted a usability study and analysed the data from the Google Analytics dashboard.

Both analysis highlighted important topics to tackle:

  • The platform landing page was not clearly explaining our value proposition and many people were leaving the website after just some seconds, thus needed a redesign.
  • The filters in the short movie list were hard to use.
  • The section in the detail page that included further resources was often missed, thus needed a redesign.

Explore the live platform yourself:

Iteration of the platform landing page

Other screens and responsive design

Going forward

Impact & next steps

So far we have being closely in contact with four schools in Spain where around 90 students have experienced our methodology to use short films in class.

However, based on the website analytics, the number of students that are using our resources is significantly higher.

Our plan is to continue improving our value proposition based on quantitative and qualitative data while we promote and platform to reach more schools.

What I learned

Being a Product Designer at Nosolofilms has taught me about the many pieces that contribute to a consistent user experience. Specially, this has helped improve the following abilities:

  • Product discovery through exploratory research.
  • Interaction design.
  • Brand identity and visual design.
  • Storytelling.
  • Continuous improvement through data driven design.
Thank you very much for reviewing my work on the Nosolofilms platform! If you have feedback to improve the case study or you would like to get in touch, contact me on martaortigosadecarlos@gmail.com