eSpark Writing
Helping 3rd-5th graders enjoy and improve on their writing skills.
Project info
Company: eSpark Learning
Timeline: 7 months from inception to beta delivery
Product team: PM, product designer, 2 learning designers, 4 engineers
My role as lead product designer
Lead discovery efforts with stakeholders, students and teachers.
Plan, execute, test and deliver all designs.
Work with PM, learning designers and devs to ensure quality.
Art direction for Willow.
Impact
eSpark Writing was announced in February ‘24, released in beta May ‘24, and made available to all classrooms on August 1st 2024 Read public announcement
Elementary state-testing is requiring students to write more and more, yet, with teachers being overwhelmed by reading and math demands, they have little time for proper writing instruction and feedback.
Because of this, most young students feel overwhelmed when asked to write and start to hate it.
Problem
How can we create an independent writing activity that students enjoy, while teaching fundamental writing skills across multiple grade levels?
Students choose an article or story they previously read or choose a new one
OpenAI API generates 3 writing prompts that align with the writing skill being taught (ex. Persuasive or Narrative Writing)
After the student chooses their prompt, Willow our AI-writing bot, guides students through the writing process from draft, revision to publishing.
Students receive instant feedback on their writing every step of the way
Depending on the student’s writing proficiency, Willow provides more or less guidance via guided questions, sentence starters, or examples.
What did we build?
An independent writing activity where students receive immediate feedback and guidance from an AI-powered character during the whole writing process.
Our approach
After a series of interviews with teachers and students, we settled on some core design principles to make students feel less overwhelmed in the writing process
Friendly interface
Break down the writing process into its smallest parts
Feedback on one writing skill at a time ()
Tight feedback loops (progress bar, feedback at any point, …)
Side by side views of writing space and guidance
eSpark Writing is a simple interface where students are guided from (re)-reading an article through the whole writing process of drafting, revising and publishing.
We previously created Choice Text non-fiction articles where students can read about almost any topic they are interested in.
Constraints for design
Interface design
Willow
“Your turn” animation shows when the student is supposed to provide an input. The eyes guide the student’s attention to the interface.
“Lip-flap” animation shows Willow talking. Since we were on a tight deadline, we opted for a generic “lipflap” animation, with a goal of converting to Lottie lipsynced later on.
There can be a few seconds delay when waiting for a response from the OpenAI-API. Rather than a generic loading pattern, a “thinking” Willow was more effective in getting young students to wait.