LEGACY FAMILY CENTER:
LAUNCHING AN INITIATIVE FOR YOUTH COMMUNITY BUILDING
CHALLENGE
Legacy Family Center founder, Victoria Karpeh, approached my team and I to kickstart a new literacy program centered around fostering a love of reading and community connection for youth.
SOLUTION
I created a recommended digital tools suite report and implementation map, as well as high-fidelity wireframes of a program-participant account portal.
TOOLS AND METHODS
Comparative Audit
Remote Interviewing
Wireframing & Annotations
Concept Evaluation
Figma
USERS
Parents & Caregivers
Reader-Aged Youth (13-17 years old)
Listener-Aged Youth (birth-12 years old)
MY ROLE
I collaborated with three UX practitioners. My focus on the project centered on researching a current digital tool suite and designing a future technology infrastructure.
Legacy Family Center (LFC), a non-profit organization, addresses the unmet social, emotional, and educational needs of children and their families. They believe that education beginning in early childhood is essential to a child’s future, and are kick-starting a youth-literacy program called Let’s Read Together. The program develops a love of reading at an early age and provides support for both its youth participants.
MEETING VICTORIA
During the kick-off meeting with founder Victoria, I learned that LFC is centered in the Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, MN community. Due to their typically busy work schedules, parents and caregivers here often need assistance with furthering their children’s learning and enrichment activities. Let’s Read Together features you readers (ages 13-17) reading to younger listeners (infancy-12 years old) twice a week over video-call. These reading sessions are recorded so that families can rewatch them later and to exhibit the program’s value to the community for grant writers.
“It was through social work with families that I realized that there is a gap in education for the families who work in the healthcare field, for instance. They work at all hours, sometimes on the weekend too, so there was nobody, really, to consistently read to the kids”
NEAR AND FAR INFRASTRUCTURE
To get Let’s Read Together started, LFC needs a technological infrastructure and a digital tool ecosystem. These will allow Let’s Read Together team members and participants to conduct reading sessions in ways that are most helpful to them. I needed to look into what tools already exist to get the program started and to explore 6 months-1 year down the road when program funding will have increased.
A TOOL SUITE FOR LET’S READ TOGETHER
Digital tools used to start Let’s Read Together must be inexpensive, and, because LFC is based in a community with a large population of immigrants and historically underserved groups, easy to use and available on most devices. Knowing what LFC already intends to use, secondary research, and comparative audits allowed me to determine which tools ought to be included. I created digital touchpoint maps of reading sessions to ensure the suite met the needs of both program participants and team members.
WHAT DO PARENTS THINK?
To identify any gaps or areas of discomfort that parents feel around tools used within the scope of a reading session, I conducted remote interviews. The insights I gained from these conversations supported my tool recommendations and generated ideas for prototype designs.
"It's probably not just parents who are going to use this, it should be easy for an elementary or middle school student to go through"
“I think giving parents options for things like communication and scheduling is always good”
“I think when parents hear ‘YouTube’ they might freak out a little, at least until the privacy settings are explained”
VISUALIZING THE FUTURE
Looking ahead to funding increases, what Let’s Read Together really needs in order to run most efficiently is a participant account portal. A portal provides easy and efficient access to program necessities for youth-readers, parents and caregivers, and Let’s Read Together team members.
BUILDING A HELPFUL FUTURE
Simple layout and navigation make the portal accessible to youth-readers and parents who are busy, whose first language is not English, or both. Personalized settings increase flexibility for program participants. And documentation of privacy policies means parents and caregivers can feel confident about participating in the program.
Conducting concept evaluations of, and having an accessibility consultation about, my prototype allowed me to make updates that best suit the expectations and needs of my users. Including icons and improving wayfinding are examples of updates I made.
JUST GETTING STARTED
From the beginning, Victoria’s goal was to get Let’s Read Together up and running. My research and recommendations for a digital tool suite ensure an accessible, convenient way for LFC and program participants to get started, communicate, and stay organized. The portal I designed leverages the most useful aspects of the tool suite and provides convenient access to what parents find most important in a remote learning environment.
While my research and recommendations are a great starting point for Legacy Family Center, it will be important for them, as the program grows and expands, to connect more with community members to ensure that these recommendations are meeting their specific needs and expectations.
EdTech Interactive Prototype Design
Multi-Touchpoint Service Design Strategy
New Features Design With Tech Constraints
Interactive Professional Service Updates
Usability Review, Testing, and Recommendations