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
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
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.
