Elevating Early Learning Through Accessible Play

The App

What is Keiki? 🌱

Keiki is an educational app that turns screen time into meaningful learning for children ages 2–7. Combining fun, interactive games with age-appropriate activities, it supports literacy, numeracy, creativity, and speech development.

Designed to empower young learners, Keiki also offers parental controls and customization for a tailored, engaging experience.

🏠 Personal note

My 2.5-year-old son loves learning with Keiki, we are certified power users! When their team reached out for a user interview, the conversation went so well their curriculum specialist shared it with the whole team. They loved it so much they invited me to do a sample UX analysis. Amazing, right!?

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The Goal

What I Set Out to Do 🎯

My goal was to assess Keiki's "Tracing Words" game for strengths and opportunities to enhance its educational value, accessibility, and engagement for preschoolers ages 3–4.

The "Tracing Words" game teaches letter recognition and fine motor skills through drag-and-trace interactions, a foundational literacy experience for young learners.

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Desk Research

🔍

UX Heuristics Evaluation

♿

Accessibility Assessment

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Desk Research

Understanding the Little Users 🧒

To provide actionable and developmentally appropriate recommendations, I grounded every suggestion in solid research — reviewing over 90 pages across 14 sources covering three key areas:

Topic 1

📖 Early Literacy & Language Development

Research on phonemic awareness, letter recognition, and how children build foundational reading skills ages 2–7.

Topic 2

♿ Accessibility & Usability for Young Children

Best practices for touch targets, visual contrast, cognitive load, and inclusive design for preschool-aged users.

Topic 3

🗣️ Speech Therapy Techniques for Ages 2–7

Evidence-based articulation strategies to inform feature recommendations around pronunciation and verbal engagement.

The Why

🎓 Evidence-Based Everything

Every recommendation I made was rooted in peer-reviewed research and early childhood education best practices, it also didn't hurt having a Master of Education in Human Development & Psychology form Harvard 😉.

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Competitive Analysis

Understanding the Landscape 🗺️

To better understand where Keiki fits in the ecosystem, I took a light look at how a few similar products approach onboarding, accessibility, and educational design — not to rank them, but to surface what's working across the space and where Keiki has a genuine opportunity to lead.

🔍 Why this matters

The most useful competitive research is about spotting patterns across the landscape so you can make smarter, more intentional product decisions.

Heuristic Evaluation

UX Analysis: Nielsen Norman's Heuristics, Kid Edition 🎮

I evaluated the "Tracing Words" game using Nielsen Norman's 10 heuristics, adapted for children's tablet apps. Each heuristic was assessed for usability, feedback quality, and developmental appropriateness for ages 3–4.

Heuristic	Assessment	Key Finding
Visibility of System Status	Exceeds ✓	Instant audio + visual feedback within 1 second of every tap and swipe — kids know exactly what's happening.
Match Between System & Real World	Exceeds ✓	Child-friendly voiceovers, familiar icons, and intuitive patterns make navigation seamless without adult help.
Large, Touch-Responsive Buttons	Exceeds ✓	Very large touch targets accommodate developing fine motor skills. Single-touch tracing prevents accidental lifts.
Simple, Intuitive Navigation	Exceeds ✓	Large back button, near-zero cognitive load, easy to navigate without any adult assistance.
Consistent & Predictable Interactions	Exceeds ✓	Tap and drag to trace, one letter at a time — predictable enough for preschoolers to build confidence quickly.
Auditory & Visual Feedback	Meets ✓	Immediate feedback reinforces success. Consider adding visual error cues for incorrect attempts (e.g. "Oops, try again!").
Child-Friendly Language	Meets ✓	Friendly, warm voice. Consider prompting kids to say the letter aloud after tracing to support speech development.
Visual Contrast & Readability	Needs Attention	Letter outlines on dark space background could use heavier line weight — harder to distinguish for young eyes.

Findings

Glows & Grows ☀️🌱

☀️ Glows — What's Working

🎨Engaging content: Bright visuals, animations, and instant celebratory feedback keep preschoolers engaged without overwhelming them.

👆User-friendly interface: Large touch targets and simple navigation let kids explore independently, building confidence.

📝Educational value: The tracing game effectively supports letter recognition, pronunciation, and fine motor development — voiceovers connect letters to sounds beautifully.

🌱 Grows — Opportunities

💬Enhanced feedback: Adding gentle error cues ("Oops, try again!") with voice prompts would help kids self-correct and reinforce learning in real time.

👨‍👩‍👧Parental controls: Progress tracking and specific learning goal settings would give caregivers more flexibility to support each child's unique path.

🗣️Speech integration: Prompts like "Can you say this letter with me?" after tracing would align with speech therapy best practices and enrich the learning experience.

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Impact

The Keiki Team's Response 💌

The feedback from the Keiki team was overwhelmingly positive, and the enhancements are set to roll out in upcoming updates.

"I just wanted to say how thrilled we are with the quality of the sample you provided — it's fantastic! It's clear you're genuinely interested in the product, and we couldn't be happier about it."

Tania Kyrylenko · Curriculum Specialist, Keiki · November 2024

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Next Steps

Where This Goes Next 🚀

With the freelance goal met, I recommended a series of next steps in a follow-up email to my presentation to the CEO, curriculum specialist and the engineering and product teams, to build on the foundational UX improvements already identified:

Step 1

🧒 Usability Testing with Children

Observing preschoolers interact with the app independently would uncover specific usability challenges and engagement patterns, kids that age can be pretty honest with what they like and don't!

Step 2

👨‍👩‍👧 Collect Parental Feedback

Brief caregiver interviews and surveys would clarify learning goals and desired features, ensuring the app aligns with both user and caregiver expectations.

Step 3

🎨 Prototype Iteration

Refining key features like feedback mechanisms and difficulty settings through iterative prototype testing to confirm effectiveness.

Step 4

📋 Final Evaluation

A final UX assessment summarizing improvements and offering prioritized recommendations to keep the app engaging, accessible, and educational.

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Reflections

What I Took Away 💭

Working with Keiki allowed me to merge UX principles with the latest early childhood education research — creating an app experience that's not only accessible but genuinely meaningful for kids.

I learned the importance of balancing educational goals with intuitive design, making sure every interaction contributes to a child's growth and enjoyment. And honestly? Watching my son trace letters on the app while I'm annotating the same screen is the most meta research experience I've ever had.

🌟 The bigger picture

This project reminded me that the best UX research comes from genuine empathy with your users — and sometimes, the best user insights come from your own living room.

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