Product Designer @ Creative Resilient Youth:
A digital community for marginalized youth to heal through creativity
Creative Resilient Youth (CRY) is a Philly-based art and leadership organization dedicated to nurturing creativity and wellbeing, and empowering young voices. Over the past few years, CRY has facilitated youth-led events, including art workshops, study groups to foster meaningful community building among youths.
This project is a 0 -> 1 mobile-first app to support CRY’s mission to keep youths engagement and expand their impact. I lead the design of a digital community to help marginalized youth in Philadelphia foster creativity, build resilience and connect.
OUTCOMES
As the only designer on the team of 15+ people, I co-led research of exploring the use case of AI in creative art for youth well-being, drive end-to-end design and product strategy, delivered the design from 0 to 1.
The MVP is now in development. See this work featured in media.
Sole Product Designer
TEAM
7 Youth Co-Designer
2 Software Engineers
Non-profit Stakeholder
Health Researcher
Principle Investigator
TIMELINE
March 2024 - Present
“Help me understand my feeling.”
Start creative journey with AI assisted self-reflection
Healing through creative expression gets easier with personalized prompts that align with reflection
“Together, we focus and celebrate the process.”
We Time, a creative community reserved for individual who share the same feeling
“Help me remember how I grew”
Personal gallery and milestones
Led 10 week, 10 participartory co-design workshops with users (aka. our co-designers)
We developed a shared language and goals, defined design opportunity and brainstormed concepts
METHOD THREE: DIARY STUDY
Analyzed and try AI feature in powering art/creativity in competitive products
Learned how AI is currently used in creativite workflow, wether they are “healing”, and know what we definitely don’t want
Facilitate conversation around the use of AI
• From ambuitiy to a share vision •
Co-designers do not want another platform to generate artwork for them. They believe this platform is different and should emphasizes:
HMW
Design a process-oriented creative arts community for teens to reflect and express as part of their healing journey?
• Feautures and user flow •
I mapped out the first time user flow and aligned the team’s vision
From the healing science perspective, user start by building their digital identity. Then, they have reflection that lead to personalization, followed by community engagement and social recognition.
• Branding •
Adding energy to CRY’s legacy green, and building association to healing
I designed and facilitate a brand workshop to engage co-designers in discussion about the platform’s brand traits, color, and typography.
• Platform Consideration •
Prioritizing mobile experience
We want to lower the barrier of commuinty engagement. Mobile is the primary internet access point for many Gen-Z users, especially those from marginalized communities who may not have regular desktop access.
NUMBER TWOCost efficiency
Given resource and budget constraints, starting with mobile enabled faster development, which allows us to test with our target audience and iterate rapidly.
NUMBER THREEGen-Z user behavior
CRY’s target users are Gen-Z. According to research from GWI, 98& of Gen-Z owns a smartphone. They primarily interacts with digital platforms via mobile, making it the most intuitive choice.
• Responsive Design •
Product Designer @ Creative Resilient Youth