simonbertrand

Appathon

contest

Context

The former digital company Alive Mobile used to organize contest for humanitory associations.

On September 27th to 29th 2013, Alive hosted the second Appathon in Sydney. There was 30 volunteer developers and designers. The challenge was to build apps for ‘care’ related local charities in a 48-hours marathon.

I participated to this contest with Clement Breuille. We worked with Benevolent Society - an organization which looks after children who have been removed abruptly from their families and placed in foster homes.

My mission

We analyzed the brief and proposed the above solution which will provide children with tools to help them express their thoughts and feelings in an easier way.

We both worked on:

• understanding the main needs and goals in a limited time
• creating wireframe & mock up for the solution
• presenting in front of the jury our solution

I particularly worked on :

• defining and creating the illustrations
• defining and creating UI

Concept

Benevolent Society wanted to rework their welcome paper form in order to make it more accessible to kids (who are not always able to read). We decided to replace the form by an app which allows kids to create their own avatar and customize it in any way they want. In this way the child deeply connects and relates to their new "virtual friend". Therefore they can express their own thoughts and feelings through their avatar.

Process

We spent a lot of time defining our application through research, reflection and wireframes.

• Who is the target of our application? In which situation will they use it?
• What device will be used?
• What should be highlighted?

This step was the most important. It allowed us to define and create the navigation inside the app. Then came the graphic representation which helped us resolve some of the interface problems. After creating a style guide, we split up the remaining work.

App overview

Onboarding

When the kid starts the app for the first time, he/she meets his/her avatar. At this time the avatar is blank and needs to be defined.

Personalization

Kids can personalize their avatar in order to create a specific language between them. They can define ears, eyes, mouth, color, ...

Quiz

In order to better understand the children, the avatar will ask him/her different kinds of questions with pre-made answers.

Management

The case worker have the possibility to manage between different profiles assigned to kids. He also have the possibility to organize each meeting with kid by adding forms. Each form is composed of different kinds of questions.

Recognition

We won the first prize!