Ripple 🌀
Designing a mobile app to support youth leaders to connect with community-focused projects, like-minded peers, and experienced mentors.
Timeline
Role
Team
Tools/Skills
Spring 2024
UX Designer
2 UX Designers
Figma, Mobile UI Design,
User Research and Testing
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a mobile app that strives to empower socially driven youth to showcase their projects through a social feed, start new projects, join ongoing initiatives, and connect with mentors and peers.
What was my impact?
Conducted literature review on youth programming and synthesized insights from 6 expert interviews and survey results to inform design solutions.
Designed wireframes and developed interactive prototypes for over 10 features.
Presented the final prototype to students and HCI professionals at Carnegie Mellon’s annual social impact Fair.
01 - PROBLEM CONTEXT
BACKGROUND
Peer-to-peer connection is essential to driving meaningful change
The YMCA has previously explored how to empower youth as community-centered change makers. A key finding was that strong peer relationships, especially among youth with shared interests, are crucial to this transformation. To build on this insight, we set out to better understand how these connections form and identify ways to strengthen them in support of youth-led change.
X
PROBLEM SPACE
How can we effectively support and connect youth with peers who share similar interests?
*Provided by the National YMCA as an initial starting point for the project.
OUR SOLUTION
Find your project, or start one. Need resources? Mentors have you covered. See your impact, it matters.
Onboarding
Activity Feed
Find Projects
Create Project
02 - RESEARCH AND PROBLEM FRAMING
LITERATURE REVIEW
Youth programs have difficulty with engagement, autonomy, and relevance
1. 🧩 Lack of Genuine Youth Engagement
Programs often lack clear roles for youth, limiting their participation. Young people need a voice in decisions and recognition for their contributions.
Source
2. 🤝 Limited Youth Autonomy
Many programs are too adult-directed, limiting youth autonomy. Effective programs foster mentorship, shared decision-making, and meaningful youth-adult partnerships. Source
3. 👫 Overlooked Youth Needs
Youth programming frequently overlooks critical areas such as support for the transition into adulthood and mental health struggles. Source
INTERVIEWS
Understanding programming challenges faced by the YMCA
I summarized interview records from 6 YMCA Directors of Youth Programming across major US branches. The research aimed to gain insights into each YMCA chapter’s experiences with youth engagement, focusing on available resources for youth development, how they were used, and the challenges faced in engaging and retaining youth participation for YMCA programs.
👥 Demographics
Local YMCA Staff
Directors of Youth Programming
Youth involved with changemaking
National YMCA Coordinators
Interview Findings
01
Youth programs have limited outreach and have difficulty with recruitment, which was heightened by the pandemic.
02
Youth programs lack a strong recognition system, often leaving change-makers feeling undervalued and unmotivated to continue their involvement.
03
There is a lack of consistent and engaging programs that appeal to the youth.
SURVEY
Hm... how do the youth leaders feel?
I created and sent out a survey asking youth aged 15-25 about their level of involvement with programming spaces such as the Y, the kinds of resources they were able to obtain from those spaces, and any additional support they would’ve liked to receive. View user persons
I’d like to...
“easily discover social programs and initiatives that align with my interests.”
“increase participation within an ongoing project.”
“visualize the impact and success of my projects.”
“simplify the process of contacting youth spaces and mentors.”
“connect with users (for testing), experts, and mentors.”
PROJECT GOALS
Which problems do we need to focus on?
How can we enable young change makers to connect with like-minded peers and mentors who can support them in achieving their goals in a widely accessible way?
How can we enhance current outreach strategies to effectively engage a wider demographic of youth beyond the immediate local community?
How can we develop a recognition system that allows young people to clearly see and appreciate the impact of their work?
03 - IDEATION AND DESIGN
INITIAL CONCEPTS
Early explorations to be considered
After conducting user research and narrowing our project goals into 3 distinct areas of consideration, we began to brainstorm potential solutions through affinity diagramming and crazy eights.
Digital networking platform
+ Centralizes project information
+ Fosters peer-to-peer connections
+ Ability to track involvement and impact
+ Ability to engage by personal interests
Mentorship matching program
+ Connects youth with professional
mentors
+ Ability to engage by personal interests
Youth ambassadors program
+ Fosters peer-to-peer connections
+ Ability to engage by personal interests
NARROWING A SOLUTION
Mobile as a priority
Based on a survey published by the Pew Research Center, nearly all teens (95%) have a smartphone, followed by 90% of teens who own a laptop or desktop.
Considering that our target audience are teenagers and young adults aged 15-25, it was very important to consider a solution with the highest accessibility. In addition, a mobile app enables wider reach with little barriers to cost, ensuring remote opportunities and social media advertising abilities. 🔗 Source
With these statistics and our user research findings in mind, we chose to move forward with a mobile app as our design solution.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Ready? Let’s get inspired
I first wanted to understand the current capabilities of existing social media/networking mobile apps as a starting point. To do this, I compared the UI of different relevant mobile apps and mockups, identifying trends and best practices to be incorporated into Ripple.
Key takeaways
Allow users to select their interests during onboarding to recommend more personalized projects
Allow users to sign in with Google to minimize unnecessary steps with education emails
Needs an ‘activity’ page or some type of feed so that users can post and be posted as a recognition system
Allow users to bookmark projects, view project descriptions, and message those involved in a project
Allow users to customize their own profile page and add other users to foster peer-to-peer connections
WIREFRAMING
Wireframing with key features in mind
After understanding necessary features to include for our mobile app, I began designing wireframes for account creation, onboarding customization, and the main navigation pages. Throughout this process, we took note of feedback from other designers.
STYLE GUIDE
Playful, bright, inviting interface through type and color
When considering our app’s style choices, we focused on our target audience: the youth changemakers. We envisioned a playful, bright, and inviting interface that would make connecting with new people and joining new projects feel less intimidating and more enjoyable.
03 - FINAL DESIGN SOLUTION
USER TESTING
How our team tested, iterated, and validated our designs
I conducted think-aloud sessions on youth participants involved in YMCA programs and/or leadership of an organization using our mid-fi mockups.
We gathered all the feedback and organized our findings into actionable items.
We iterated on our designs with higher priority first (conceptual level fixes), then more minor nice-to-have tweaks. Then, we repeat until hi-fi.
POSTER DESIGN
Introducing Ripple, our design solution
*Presented at Carnegie Mellon University’s annual social impact fair
FEATURE 1
Customizable onboarding process
Designed to be intuitive and efficient, Ripple’s onboarding process offers users the option to sign up with Google (ideal for students using their education email) or with their personal email. Users are then guided through a streamlined, four-step profile customization with the option to specify their project interests.
FEATURE 3
...or start your own
For youth leaders with a unique vision they wish to bring to life, Ripple provides the ability to launch their own projects. With just four simple steps, they can set up their project, customize its details, invite members, and begin making an impact with full autonomy.
FEATURE 4
Connect with friends and mentors
With Ripple, users can connect with like-minded peers from diverse fields and backgrounds, far beyond their local area. Mentors from across the United States are available to provide valuable support, including financial assistance for projects, help in securing venues, and guidance in overcoming challenges. This broad network ensures users have access to a wealth of resources and expertise.
FEATURE 5
See your impact, it matters
Ripple’s Activity page keeps users updated with the latest project developments and their friends' activities. Users can tag project members, engage with posts through likes, comments, reposts, and shares, and connect with peers. This interactive feature enables users to visualize and enhance their positive impact within the community.
REFLECTION
Post-project thoughts!
This was my first UX project and my introduction to UI/UX design and human-computer interaction. I'm incredibly grateful to my team members who navigated this project with me and made it such an enjoyable experience! 💙
04 - REFLECTION
Intentional collaboration
Having a diverse team can really make a difference in design. As a statistics major, I loved hearing from different viewpoints in communication design and cognitive science. Everyone’s unique perspective helped us tackle problems from new angles and come up with creative solutions that I wouldn’t have been able to come up with alone.
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Jodie last visited around August 2025. Hope to see you around again!
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