This was a team endeavor collaborating with one other UX Designer and three web developers to create an interactive resource to combat the prevalence of cyberbullying. We designed this for USA Today over the course of just four days and pitched our proposal to their team.
discovery and research
We chose this topic after USA Today expressed that they were looking for an interactive resource that helped address an impactful issue facing society today. We found that cyberbullying is something many people have to deal with, but isn't well understood. An educational tool for all ages would be helpful to parents, teachers, and students.
We researched cyberbullying, read stories about victims, and did competitive analysis with other cyber bullying educational sites, quizzes, and prevention sites. Personal stories were very impactful on our understanding of the issue. We reached out to our network of colleagues, friends and family, asking for feedback from teachers or anyone else who worked with youth and polled 16 teachers about cyber bullying issues, which gave us our best information. They provided incredibly insightful commentary on the issues their students are facing, the role their parents play, and the best methodology to reach students without seeming out of touch, boring, or condescending. They showed us that kids are really unlikely to reach out for help or have open dialogue about these issues, so offline it is an invisible tragedy before becomes too late.
sketching and ideation
Our first day was limited to UX design, the developers we were working with participated in key exercises to make sure we were all on board with the scope and strategy of our project before programming began. During that initial planning phase, we did some affinity mapping with post-it notes as a team to pull together all of the elements of cyber bullying. We also went through a design studio process to begin mapping out what our site should look like.
STUDENT PORTAL
We wanted our site to do a lot at first- having a portal for teachers, parents, kids, and the general public. Ultimately, we decided having two separate entrance portals for both adults and students could tackle the minimum for all parties. We determined our kids portal- which we renamed students- would be styled as interactively as possible, after getting this feedback from the teachers we surveyed. We knew whatever we were presenting to kids couldn't be dry and boring- to retain their interest, we wanted to present them with a quiz that gave the same answers regardless of their response. We wanted to show that no one is 100% innocent in cyber bullying- everyone is participating in some capacity- and that there's a fine line between just “being a kid” and bullying online. We wanted there to be a LOT of personal stories for the kids- showing them the horrible outcomes of cyber bullying when online feuds get out of hand. We also wanted to have an emergency resource available at all times, in case any of the questions were triggering or any of the students were currently in crisis. We also hoped that USA Today would be able to use the (totally anonymous) quiz results to gather up-to-date information about the prevalence of cyber bullying and gain some insight as to the perspective of the kids who are growing up with it as part of the norm.
ADULTS PORTAL
It was important for us to reinforce the idea that parents start the technology conversation with their kids early on so that they can be approached when a bullying online situation becomes apparent. This way kids are comfortable talking about their online activity and don't become exasperated when a parent seems clueless about a particular app or forum. We wanted to make sure adults know that it is their responsibility to stay informed about what their kids are using so that they aren't perceived as out of touch by kids. We also wanted to highlight that bullying happens 24/7 now, its not just in schools like it used to be. It can be anonymous, so keeping track of what your kids are doing online is really important so that they aren't being bullies themselves. We also wanted to make it clear that parents can be better role models, kids absorb their parents behavior like sponges, so if they see their parents being catty or gossiping in real life, they may be mimicking this behavior on the internet.
SELFIE- SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN WITH SIGN FOR ANONYMITY
We incorporated a social media campaign to publicize the interactive tool. When students or adults finish the quiz, they are prompted to take a selfie with their computer or phones camera. The image has a pre-loaded graphic of hands holding up a blank sign, to ensure that anyone who wants to remain anonymous can hide most of their face behind that graphic. Students and adults can type in a customized message for their sign as well, prompting others to do something to combat cyberbullying. The site would be loaded with some kind of filter to prevent certain words that would imply someone is using the system to spread negative messages or messages of hate.
MOBILE RESPONSIVENESS
We envisioned that the site would be mobile responsive as well, enabling kids who only have access to the internet through their phones to be able to use it easily as well.
SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW TO IMPROVE
Our final prototype included "quiz results" in the form of suggestions for reaching out to those who may be involved on either side of cyber bullying. This gives real life solutions to solving the communication barriers so many kids face offline.
PROTOTYPE AND TESTING
We tested a paper prototype and saw that we needed to clarify some of the navigation and wording. These changes were implemented in our final iteration of the digital prototype created with design software. The developers coded a working site that matched up to the user experience specifications we had determined earlier.
