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Bubbly Display

Bubbly: CVI Literacy

I began working on Bubbly at its conception with App Team Carolina in September 2021 with App Team Carolina as a UI/UX Designer. Since July 2022, I have been a Team Lead on this project.

Introduction

Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) is the most common visual impairment diagnosis in the USA, and there is no close second place. Still, most people have never heard of it.

It’s most common in babies and young children, but can continue into adulthood. A child with CVI has vision problems that are caused by their brain that can’t be explained by a problem with their eyes. The disorder is caused by damage to the parts of the brain that process vision, which disrupts the brain's communication with the eyes.

Normally, the eyes send electrical signals to the brain, and the brain turns those signals into images. With CVI, your brain has trouble processing and understanding these signals.

Cortical visual impairment is often referred to by other terms including: cerebral visual impairment, neurological visual impairment, and brain damage related visual impairment.

The wonderful reality of CVI is that it can get better with appropriate intervention. Although there’s no direct cure, vision rehabilitation can help people with CVI make the most of their vision.

Babies and kids with CVI need early intervention and therapy, educational support, and other special services to help them develop and learn.

There are not many apps available for Android or iOS that cater to students with CVI. Due to their unique visual needs and often young age, most students with CVI cannot access the abundant online literacy resources that are available to their sighted peers.

Purpose

We will be developing an interactive gaming app that allows younger students with CVI to playfully improve their condition and gradually improve their vision.

Children with CVI need to be taught to understand what they are seeing by highlighting the shapes and salient features of the words.

An example game would be dragging and dropping words into their bubbled shapes. The bubble-word strategy was developed by Dr. Christine Roman-Lantzy.

Competitive Audit

There are few apps on the App Store for people with CVI and even fewer focusing on literacy specifically.

App Name
Observations
Tap-N-See Now Lite
  • Red and yellow are the dominant colors.
  • Game consists of touching a moving red bear on a black background.
  • User must pay to use settings.
  • There are no instructions for how to play
  • App includes an about section that explains how certain children react to certain colors better, but the user has to pay for the full version to change colors.
  • No end in sight to the game and no change in difficulty - same objective over and over and over.
  • Positive and negative feedback sounds.
EDA PLAY Series
  • Comes in multiple different versions that appear very similar in style.
  • Following observations will be about EDA PLAY TOM specifically because it is the top result.
  • Settings suggestion pops up immediately asking the user to edit gestures in settings.
  • Another prompt asks the user if they would like to record the child’s playing.
  • App Menu section must be held down for two seconds to open (parental security), same for task overview section.
  • No instructions for how to play the game.
  • Red and yellow are dominant colors.
  • Not clear how the game works, there appears to be a delay.
  • It looks like there is an animal on the screen, and you need to tap an item for the animal to use, like a grooming brush for a horse.
  • More or less just tapping on the screen to trigger an animation.
  • Animal bounces if you don’t touch the screen for a while.
Big Bang Bundle
  • Costs $34.99 on the App Store for a bundle of two apps, and each app costs $24.99 individually.
  • Cannot afford to buy these apps solely to observe - price is a huge barrier to me and certainly a barrier to users with CVI.
CVI Training (Recognition)
  • No instructions for how to play.
  • Game consists of touching a random animal - if you touch correctly, it makes that animal’s noise.
  • Positive feedback sounds (animal sounds).
  • There are settings, but you have to fiddle with them to figure out what exactly they do - not appropriately labeled.
  • No text on screen unless settings is opened.
  • No initial home screen - the game starts immediately upon opening the app.
  • Settings offer customization - can change the color and set of animals.
Drag n Drop - BrightLittleEyes
  • User must hold down info and settings buttons to open them (parental security feature).
  • App provides onboarding information when first opened.
  • Settings allow the user to change the background from black to white (and vice versa) and to choose the color of the game image.
  • Dominant colors on home screen are red, blue, and yellow on a black background.
  • No instructions for how to play the game.
  • Objective is to drag a coin in a random spot on the screen into a piggy bank/jar.
  • Game shows fireworks and cute monkey when the user is correct

User Personas

Persona of a child with CVI Persona of an educator Persona of a parent of a child with CVI

User Journey

Actions
Download App
Open App (First-time User)
Open App (Returning User)
Play the Game
See Score / Feedback
Task List
  1. Guardian Downloads App
  1. Onboarding designed for both kids and parents
  1. Option to resume previous game
  2. Option to select new game/level
  1. Drag letters/words and drop them on top of the corresponding bubble outline
  1. Progress bar/stars showing how many they got right/wrong
Feeling Adjective
 Happy that there is a free app for reading specifically Have an understanding of what the app is going to be like. Happy for different levels + improvement Happy to resume back where they were Word wouldn’t place / couldn’t get ahold of it, so they’re frustrated

Confident and happy when correct		 Satisfied with feedback noises and pleased with insight offered after gameplay
Improvement Opportunities
 Make sure app if focuses on letters and words and is named appropriate Make sure guardians know how to use the guided access feature Make resume button very obvious on page Spacing around bubble that recognizes the drag

Happy sound + have a voice that reads letter (option to turn off)		 include feature to read out loud

User Flow

User Flow Chart

Demo

Client Feedback

"This is simply fantastic! A huge congratulations to your team!"
“I tried this app with one of my preschoolers who has a diagnosis with CVI this week! And she absolutely LOVED it!”
“I didn't have to teach her the game. She picked it up pretty fast. She kept saying after every letter, ‘I did it!’!”