LiveItUp is a text-based online learning platform dedicated to teaching life skills you won’t learn in the classroom. It offers 20 different modules on topics like community building, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and fitness.
Leah How, Alyson Bloom, and Ahmed Mowgoud
12 months | August 2018 - August 2019
Learning is essential for continuous growth and development. The traditional education system leans toward developing hard skills like writing, reading, math, and programming. To achieve a balanced and successful lifestyle, it is important to develop soft skills such as problem-solving, teamwork, and communication.
How might we help recent college grads learn important life skills in a digestible and engaging way so that they have a smooth transition to adulthood?
LiveItUp helps recent college grads master life skills through a habit-building 21-day challenge that includes daily text and bite-size videos taught by leading experts in the field
In order to understand the problem space, we conducted a survey that received 894 responses. In our survey, we identified our target users, their topic of interest, and the biggest challenge they currently encounter.
Many recent colleges grads find it difficult to smoothly transition into adult life due to the absence of lessons within a traditional college curriculum that helps students improve practical skills like budgeting, community building, and emotional well-being management.
In our first survey, respondents identified a high interest in fitness, personal finance, and emotional health. However, users focused on topics such as mental health, time management, and self-help when given the opportunity to voice the challenges they were facing. We were able to use this feedback and come up with a 12-month lesson plan focused on helping users in their self-help journey.
84% of college students agree that lessons learned in class did not transfer after graduation. 90% of participants state that transitioning to adulthood would be smoother if practical skills were taught in school.
Mental health is a key component in learning and development. While college is the first step towards adulthood, it is impossible for a student to learn at their full potential when encountering mental health issues. Thus, it is helpful for students to learn successful mental and emotional wellbeing management skills.
After analyzing our top four competitors, we noticed notable differences between each platform. By comparing each platform’s strengths and weaknesses, we developed an understanding for the reasons why users would prefer one platform over the other. From there, we proceeded to create a platform that integrated the best qualities of each competitor.
We held an ideation session to identify the four most important features that cater to our user's needs. By identifying critical distinguishing product features, we were able to create a user flow, wireframes, and designs.
We created a user flow to specify a new user's account creation and login processes. This information was passed on to our in-house UX designer for the final product development.
Our marketing strategy focused on cultivating student leaders to identify trending topics within universities across the nation. We were able to gather a list of potential ambassadors through Daybreaker's campus events. After reaching out and interviewing students, we onboarded 280 ambassadors across the country. From there, we were able to quickly build a community of 2800 active members.
To drive and maintain a sense of community, we posted daily reflection questions specific to each challenge on the community forum. We made sure to shine a light on our ambassadors' personal stories through our Instagram account.
LiveItUp’s design stems from brands such as Netflix, Masterclass, and Calm. We wanted to highlight our message of human-oriented technology and modern simplicity. This gave us the opportunity to use bright colors to convey the excitement of community building and learning.
At the end of my internship, we successfully completed the first phase of this project by conducting a beta test involving 200 users. During my 12 months at LiveItUp, I had the opportunity to work directly with the co-founder on this early-stage product. Although we faced multiple product development and marketing challenges, I was able to quickly adapt to the changes throughout this process.
This project has taught me the importance of taking on different roles and effective communication in a small team-based project. This experience helped hone my analytical abilities, reinforce my passion for UX design, and further developed my digital marketing skills.
