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BoldInk App - Contract
A creative mobile writing app that encapsulates the magic of in-person WriteGirl workshops and resources.
OVERVIEW
Who is WriteGirl
WriteGirl is a Los Angeles nonprofit that empowers underserved girls and gender-expansive youth through creative writing. With 200+ volunteer women writers, they support 500+ youth annually through workshops, panels, and events that build confidence and college readiness.
THE PROBLEM
Digital Gaps in Mentorship
In early chats with WriteGirl, it was clear the shift online during COVID hurt connection and engagement. With girls joining from as far as Uganda and Tajikistan, they needed a better digital space for mentorship.
OUR SOLUTION
The Vision for BoldInk
Partnering with WriteGirl, we envisioned a creative writing app that brings the spirit of their in-person workshops to a digital space, expanding access worldwide. Designed for girls, gender-expansive youth, and adults, the app would offer engaging features that foster connection, creativity, and mentorship.
USER INTERVIEWS
What do Writers Need
With our goals in mind, we interviewed WriteGirl staff and volunteers to understand their writing habits, challenges, and motivations. Insights from five interviews revealed four key pain points, which we then synthesized into clear themes to guide a design that truly supports and enhances their creative process.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Exploring the Creative Writing App Market
To understand the digital writing space, we analyzed six creative writing apps, looking at what they did well and where they fell short. Most offered surface-level content without much depth. In contrast, we set out to create an immersive experience with rich, thoughtfully designed activities that would truly engage WriteGirl’s global audience. Our prompts would build progressively, tapping into users’ senses, memories, and emotions to inspire more meaningful and impactful writing.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
We found that these apps relied on in-app writing, daily streaks, and paywalls. Their surface-level content lacked the depth WriteGirl’s writers needed for meaningful engagement.
USER FLOW
Mapping the User Flow
We used insights from our competitive analysis, interviews, and affinity mapping to create user journeys within our app. This process helped us design intuitive and engaging user flows that addressed the identified pain points and aligned with WriteGirl's mission.
ITERATIONS
Bringing Ideas to Life
As we transitioned to higher fidelity designs, we followed our research, guiding a highly iterative process for each feature and screen. A huge aspect of our design team was our ability to foster an environment where there were no “bad” ideas! This approach encouraged creativity, resulting in innovative ideas from spontaneous team huddles and a playful design process.
USABILITY TESTING
Feedback Implementation
After building an MVP, we tested the prototype with seven WriteGirl users to uncover usability issues. Through usability testing, we pinpointed struggles, analyzed their causes, and identified ways to enhance the app’s design and user experience for a smoother creative journey.
DISCOVERABLITY & CONSISTENCY
Users had difficulty discovering and consistently using app features, particularly the history feature.
SOLUTION
We made the history feature more accessible on end state pages, eliminating the need for backtracking and improving discoverability.
USER - CENTERED WORDING
Users suggested guiding text and action phrases for an intuitive & personable app experience.
SOLUTION
We incorporated user-centric wording, making buttons more intuitive and the app more relatable.
STYLE GUIDE
Creating a Style Guide
We developed a design system for BoldInk to capture a playful yet mature vibe, balancing vibrant, tactile elements with clean, professional layouts to reflect WriteGirl’s creative spirit and support its diverse writers.
SOLUTION
Introducing BoldInk
ONBOARDING
A welcoming process that will excite users to pick up a pen and get started
HOME
Your easily accessible toolkit to help guide users in exploring all activities and features
TRIPLE FLIPS
Randomized collection of objects and words to inspire a poem, story or even a song
MIND & BODY
Activities to refocus attention during a long writing session or to help you shift gears between projects
BOOKMARKS
Find all your saved items are right here, ready for you to dive back in and let your creativity flow
DOOR ACTIVITY
Progressive writing activities that let you enter a whole new realm of unique categories
STORY STARTERS
You can use these randomizers to start a story or come back here for inspiration
FREE WRITE
Grab and pen and paper. This is your zone, to let your creativity run free
POCKET PROMPTS
Designed to fire up your creativity. Mine your response for nuggets of words, phrases or ideas
REFLECTION
What I Learned From BoldInk
This project was my first experience working directly with clients and collaborating as part of a team with both designers and developers. It taught me a lot about communication, teamwork, and adapting my design approach based on real-world feedback. Here are some of the most valuable lessons I took away from the process.
NEXT STEPS
BoldInk is Currently Being Deployed
With our designs and code finalized, we’re now fully focused on preparing the app for release on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store by December 2025. This stage involves thorough testing, final optimizations, and meeting all platform requirements. We’re excited to bring the app to users soon—stay tuned for more updates as we approach launch!
THANK YOU
Thankful for My Team <3
Shoutout to the best PL (Angela), my fellow designers (Jiyeon and Eric), and the cracked devs (Cheryl, Edward, Erin, Jasmine, Daniel, Angela, and Joy). Thank you so much for teaching me quite literally everything there is to know about tech and making it such a safe and inspiring environment! I love you all so much <3