Helping young people gain employability skills with an accreditation tool

Problem

Groop are a community management platform and they were wanting to bring a new product to market. The key challenge was that there was an existing tool out there for volunteers to complete accreditations, but it was difficult to use and lots had given up and not achieved their accreditations. The tool needed to be fun and engaging not a chore to fill out.

Solution

Design and development of a new React Native application to help volunteers complete accreditations of different levels from bronze to gold. We employed gamification techniques to make the app fun and engaging for young people, designing game maps, levels, badges and achievements. The new branding also reflected the new playful brand personality with the use of bright colours and fun badges which were actually inspired by some volunteer sketches.

As part of this project, we also conducted a series of in-person user testing sessions with volunteers allowing them to become completely involved in designing the app from start to finish.

Impact

Volunteers completed their bronze, silver and gold accreditation with certifications to take to employers. With our help, Groop were able to raise further funding for the project.

The value this (app) will have added to the process is unmeasurable - and starting from scratch with the test users was also very interesting... the test users weren't even presented with an initial concept, they were heavily involved in creating that too!

Community Manager for Funding organisation

Approach

user flow diagrams — User Journeys & Flows for the app

wireframes for quest app — User flows of competitors

Focus groups to shape the product

We held three focus groups with volunteers and the team at Groop. These comprised of running through initial ideas all the way through to testing a live beta product, as well as interim sessions to review branding and visual direction.

feedback from users — User Research Feedback

person on phone in car looking at quest app

Badges and Achievements

The client presented the volunteers with an idea of what type of badges were required for the awards and we received sketches back from the volunteers.

Using this as inspiration, we worked with the visual design team to create a series of badges for each learning outcome within the accreditation.

Related work

Technical solutions

Launching a bold, dynamic public website for the MyWorld programme funded by UKRI

Change management