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Making Children The Hero Of Their Own Stories
We were challenged with taking on a unique children’s book and creating a digital counterpart which could help inspire a generation by making children the heroes of their own story.
Stories Have Never Been More Personal.
Wonderbly is an award-winning publisher that creates beautiful bespoke children’s books that personalise the story to the individual’s name.
The books take kids of all ages on an adventure, telling stories of self-discovery as characters help children find the letters in their name. These characters make up the pages of the book with each character having a role to play in every individual story and experience.
Readers can choose from a number of avatars to represent themselves within the story. This, along with the choice of including personal messages and dedications at the beginning of each book, is what makes the Wonderbly experience unique and intimate for their community.
The “Lost My Name” book was the UK’s best-selling picture book in 2017, we wanted to expand upon the magic of the print-based version by creating a digital experience that users would love.
The Challenge?
Wonderbly approached 3 Sided Cube with the challenge of creating a unique experience and journey that differed vastly between users.
It would be vital to translate the beautifully printed stories into a just as beautiful digital platform, one with an interface that children could both understand and engage with.
It was crucial that we worked closely with Wonderbly to create the same personal and sentimental moments that children and parents experienced while reading the books together.
The Solution.
The team created a stunning app that encapsulates the storytelling into a digital journey that children love.
Working alongside the Wonderbly tech team to solve the technical challenges of managing thousands of variations of names, images, and avatars, using server optimisation to deliver content quickly. With three variations of stories for every letter in the alphabet, we had to cater for an almost infinite possibility of story combinations.
By focusing on iOS app development, we would be able to incorporate an interface designed for larger screens on iPad devices, providing a more visual platform for children and parents to engage with their stories on.
Working closely with the client’s marketing agency, we implemented analytics and usage behaviour tracking so that we can continuously improve the app and the user journey and learn from session data for future projects.
The more technical elements of the app would also allow us to connect the app, website and customer profiles, meaning users could include personal transcriptions and add books to their baskets.
What Does The App Do?
Onboarding Users
The app was designed to onboard users by setting up individual profiles. Making every experience unique by including children's names and a range of different avatars, all of which influence the story that's being told.
Telling Unique Stories
The aim of the game is to collect each letter of your name, meeting imaginative characters along the way, from aardvarks to zebras and many more. These characters each have a role to play in finding your name and differ depending on each story.
Engaging Through Design
Children of various ages can interact and engage with the app using simple navigation and the option to use larger screens on iPads. The beautifully designed artwork from the Wonderbly team made it easy to scale the interface for different screen sizes.
Creating an Experience
Once children have found every letter in their name and become the hero of their own stories, users are given the option to add their stories to their basket and experience them in their original form, physical printed books.
Developing A Unique Experience on Mobile:
The Wonderbly – Lost My Name app is currently available on iOS 11/12, but because we developed the app in React-Native, it can easily be scaled to Android devices in the future.
Analytics also played a crucial role in the project, measuring user-behaviour metrics from the number of page views and monthly active users to the percentage of readers who went on to purchased the physical book, gaining insights that inform future improvements and new books.
Translating physical printed books onto a digital platform meant that the app had to take a lot of UX and UI design into consideration; ensuring that every page was easy to read and visually aesthetic for both parents and children. Features such as the navigation bar, scrolling, zooming and responding to screen-sizes were all crucial in making sure consumers had the best experience with the stories and the brand.
It was crucial that the app created an omni-channel experience, one which gave people the ability to add books to their baskets, include personal dedications and have their stories emailed to them. This created a journey-to-purchase route that gives users a choice of different platforms, as well as adding more social elements and shareability to Wonderbly’s digital strategy.
The success of this project was working closely with the client, understanding the reader’s requirements and exploring how digital technology can add to a brand experience. We knew children loved the physical books, but now they can combine new platforms and touchpoints to enjoy storytelling in a new and inspiring way.
70% of users create a book within the app and read it to completion... That level of user engagement is a testament to the platform’s functionality and design.
Fun Fact
According to the Office of National Statistics, In 2017 there were 13,672 first names used in the UK. Oliver was the most popular name, being used 6,259 times.
With the three variations of stories for each alphabet letter in the Wonderbly app, the name Oliver would deliver 729 permutations of the Lost My Name story. That’s a lot of unique stories to be told, better start reading them now!
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