Scaling the PenPal Program—Fostering Global Connections
Addressing logistical, technological, and operational challenges to create a scalable and secure PenPal experience.
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MY ROLE
I collaborated with Sara (co-designer) and Rez to define and implement key features. My primary responsibilities included:
DELIVERABLES
- Designing the Voice Mail feature for smoother communication.
- Redesigning the UI for Video and Image to enhance user experience.
- Ensuring UI consistency across the app for a cohesive and polished appearance.
TEAM
- Sara: Co-designer
- Rez: Product manager
- (Me,Emil) UX designe
DURATION
3–4 months
Project summary
The PenPal program connects international buddies with children in underserved communities, particularly in Uganda. The app is a crucial part of the program, facilitating communication and fostering cross-cultural exchange. It’s driven by an operational need, not user demand—solving logistical challenges rather than creating a product in response to market needs.The Phone Chat App was designed to enable safe, moderated, and effective communication between international buddies and children, overcoming key challenges such as:
- Limited access to personal devices for children.
- Privacy concerns about sharing personal emails.
- The need for a cost-effective, scalable way to communicate.
Despite these challenges, the app has grown to support over 100,000 users in Uganda, helping bridge gaps between international volunteers and children in underserved areas.
The need for a cost-effective, scalable way to communicate.
- Access to Technology: Children in Uganda often lack personal devices, making it necessary for local volunteers to act as intermediaries for communication.
- Email Privacy Issues: Exposed email addresses led to spam, requiring a way to mask personal contacts while still enabling effective communication.
- Cost Constraints: Printing physical letters and maintaining traditional communication methods was expensive and unsustainable.
- Language Barriers: Many children could not write in English, necessitating alternative communication methods like voice messages.
- Communication Delays: Without reminders, international buddies often forgot to write back, which hindered ongoing engagement.
Proposed Solutions
- Voice Messaging Feature: I designed a Voice Mail feature to allow children and international buddies to send voice messages, thus overcoming language and literacy challenges. This feature improved communication and gave the children a chance to express themselves more naturally.
- Email Masking and Privacy Protection: A system to mask personal email addresses between buddies and children was introduced, ensuring privacy while allowing secure communication through the app.
- In-App Moderation: Introduced an in-app moderation feature to review and filter out inappropriate content, ensuring all communication was appropriate and safe for children.
- Reminder Notifications: Developed reminder notifications to alert international buddies when they had not written to their pen pal for an extended period, encouraging ongoing communication.
- English Letter Templates: Created letter-writing templates to help children who struggle with English. These templates guided them in writing structured and meaningful letters to their buddies.
User Personas & Flows
We identified and mapped out three primary user roles in the app:
- International Buddy: The volunteers who write to the children and engage in cultural exchange. They need a straightforward, secure way to communicate.
- Child : The children, often with limited access to technology, and the local volunteers helping them use the app. They require an intuitive interface and privacy protection.
- Moderator / Admin: The role responsible for overseeing the communications, ensuring that both children’s and buddies' messages are appropriate and moderated for safety.
Key Design Decisions
Voice Mail Integration
The Voice Mail feature was introduced to provide an accessible communication channel for children who cannot write in English, allowing them to send voice recordings to their international buddies.
UI Consistency:
Redesigning the UI for video and image sharing helped make the app more user-friendly, ensuring that media sharing didn’t feel overly complicated and was aligned with the overall design philosophy of simplicity.
Email Masking:
To ensure privacy, I designed a system where email addresses were masked—instead of exposing the personal emails of the international buddies, a secure intermediary system handled communication.
Outcome
While the app was driven by operational needs rather than market demand, it has proven to be an essential tool in the PenPal program. The app has now reached over 100,000 active users in Uganda, making it a critical part of the communication between children and international buddies. The app’s functionality and features are improving engagement and ensuring that communication is safe, effective, and sustainable.
Interactive Prototype
Learnings
Operational Needs vs. Market Demand:
The app was built to address specific operational needs, such as communication privacy and logistical issues, rather than responding to a direct user demand. This approach shaped the design decisions and required us to focus on solving real-world problems.
Cross-Team Collaboration:
Working closely with Sara and Rez helped streamline the design and development process, ensuring that the app remained both functional and user-friendly.
User-Centered Design:
Even though the app was driven by operational needs, involving users (both children and international buddies) early in the design process helped us ensure that the solution was effective and easy to use.
