Teaching Foundational Math through a Gaming Experience

Company - Zearn.org

Role - Lead Product Designer

Duration - 4 Months

Teammates - Project Manager, UX Lead, Product Designer, Fullstack engineer

Zearn.org is an educational technology startup building a comprehensive Math curriculum for grades K-5. Snow More, Snow Less is one of 12 games that teach foundational math skills, in a personalized and adaptive learning experience.

I started my journey with this project as a Visual Designer, assisting the Lead UX Designer, and eventually had the opportunity to step up as the Lead Product Designer. I led brainstorming sessions, crafted low-fidelity wireframes for user testing with elementary school children, and designed one-of-a-kind characters and environments.

Challenges

  • Existing classroom models rely on memorization and shortcuts

  • Design an enjoyable experience for advanced students that has enough scaffolding for students who are struggling

  • Embody growth mindset in the messaging and remediation activities to avoid math anxiety students often develop

Opportunities

  • A small but collaborative team allowed us to push the boundaries of what we could do with our concepts and animation

  • Pre-established relationships with public schools in the area, allowed us to perform user testing often

Existing Classroom Models

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sounds like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest.

Gamification of Foundational Math Skills

One of our product goals was to have an activity with an immersive environment, characters, and animations that resembled a gaming experience while still providing quality math content.

I started with pen and paper sketches to explore different environments and narratives.

Scaffolding Content

In order to ensure that students were getting the sufficient support, we moved students from a concrete math model to more abstract content.

This had to be a part of the activity narrative so students did not feel penalized but instead felt encouraged through the process

Delightful Progress Bar Through Custom Animation

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Product Goal

Immersive Environments

Custom illustrations were crucial in achieving a distinct narrative and aesthetic. We invested time in developing the environment from scratch, as oppose to using stock illustrations.

Takeaways and Learnings

Early involvement of every team member kept everyone in line with project scope and priorities, which kept us within our timeline of 4 months to develop and launch.

Metrics

Since launching this game, 987,132 students have successfully completed an activity with at least 70% of their answers correct.