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CASE STUDY

Bee Ready

Bee Ready is a passion project that my partners and I created during the 2020 Pandemic to help parents deal with the challenges of remote learning. After trying to use professional tools to help us stay on track we decided there needed to be a more kid friendly solution so we set out to create our own.

CHALLENGE

Help parents navigate home schooling & life in a pandemic (and beyond).

With the pandemic, parents were thrust into virtual schooling. We were all ill-prepared for the change. Our son was in 4th grade when the lock-downs began. As a UX designers and parents, we couldn’t help but empathize with the difficultly of this new responsibility. Some of the main challenges included the following.
  • Lots of new scheduling challenges
  • Schedules weren’t same every day
  • Hard to juggle job + kids schedules
MY ROLE:
Lead Designer
Co-founder
discovery

Apple Alarms to the rescue! Almost.

Our first attempt at problem solving was using Apple’s built in alarms. It was better than nothing but there was much to be desired for our use case.

  • Complex – Alarms is great but it wasn’t indented to be used this way
  • By the time the alarm went off class was already in session
  • No easy way to see what alarms are set for what days

These are actual screenshots of the alarms we used for our son.

Market Research

We tested several leading apps in the reminder space. Specifically, those targeted towards children. In addition to our own testing we scoured their reviews for helpful insights.

Findings

Some solutions existed in the market.
None of them solved the problem well.

  • Difficult to use
  • Tried to do too many things (overwhelming)
  • Didn’t work well or needed a database
  • Not visually appealing
Exploration

There was lots of collaboration between our small but mighty team. Working closely with my dev partner allowed us to balance technical lift with the value added.

Product Strategy

  • Easy to use/simple
  • Focus on core functionality ONLY (reminders with alarms)
  • No database/account required
  • Fun for kids, pleasant for adults
  • Ship by start of school year
  • Have fun along the way

Brand Strategy

  • Wanted it to be descriptive
  • Memorable
  • Fun
Product Launch

We soft launched our MVP Aug 2020! Just in time for “school”!

Marketing & Promotion
When putting together our marketing strategy we focused on the activities that gave the most bang for our buck.
  • ASO – Experimentation
  • Website
  • Social Posts
  • Facebook Ads
  • Apple Store Ads
  • Press Kit
  • Cross Promo ads (Ellie’s games)
Post Launch Feedback & iteration

We talked to a small subset of users before launching the app which was helpful in identifying some usability opportunities. Now that we launched our app and had a much larger group testing our product we were able to identify bugs that would have been nearly impossible to find on our own.

Evolution
As the pandemic began winding down we looked to broaden our appeal. We adjusted our app strategy and positioning in Summer 2021 so that potential users would understand Bee Ready has many uses beyond home schooling.
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Reservation Grid

01 | Gym Launch

02 | Bacardi - Mix Lab

03 | Sysco Foodie

04 | ICF

05 | Federal Reserve Museum

06 | Lamkin Grips

07 | Tridiuum

08 | DSP Mutual Funds

09 | Backporch

10 | myCongress

11 | Nudge: Daily Reminder

12 | Federal Reserve

LET'S CONNECT

I’m always interested in meeting kind, talented people who are passionate about what they do. Notice how I put kind in front of talented? It’s kind of a big deal to me. 😉

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