YMCA Life Skills App

Empowering Young Adults Through Practical Learning

Project

Overview

When we started this project, our team's mission was pretty clear: build something that helps young adults feel more confident about “adulting.” In our project scenario, The YMCA was launching a new Life Skills program, and they needed a mobile-friendly portal to support it—something approachable, helpful, and designed with real people in mind.

We weren't building a course catalog. We were building something that could make navigating adulthood feel a little less overwhelming.

The Challenge

How might we help young adults learn life skills in a way that feels practical, motivating, and easy to access on mobile?

Discovery & Research

What People Actually Need

We started with user interviews—chatting with people between 18 and 40 to find out how they felt about life skills like budgeting, credit scores, insurance, and just keeping it together. Spoiler alert: most people didn't feel great about any of it.

"I really wish that my financial literacy was greater than what I know now."

We heard this kind of thing over and over again. People were frustrated with content that was either too long, too dense, or too outdated. So we pulled together our notes and ran an affinity mapping session to group common struggles, goals, and preferences.

What We Learned

  • Short-form, visual content was a must—think TikToks, infographics, step-by-step guides
  • Gamification could help—but only if it didn't feel like pressure
  • Progress tracking mattered—users wanted to feel like they were making headway
  • Topics like financial literacy were the top priority across the board

We also ran a feature inventory + pluses & deltas on competitors like Duolingo, Skillshare, and TikTok to inform our direction.

Brand

Pluses

Deltas

Recommendations

Coursera

  • Accredited Credentials
  • Structured Learning Paths
  • Flexible Scheduling
  • User-Friendly Interface
  • Cost
  • Academic Tone
  • Lack of Creative Topics
  • Integrate structured content flows with creative visual storytelling
  • Accessibility-first mobile UX
  • Offers free core modules before paywall

Duolingo

  • Engaging Gamification
  • Mobile-First Design
  • Freemium Model
  • AI Driven Content Expansion
  • Limited Depth for Advanced Learners
  • Over-Reliance on Translation Exercises
  • Passive-Aggressive Notifications
  • Inconsistent Course Quality
  • Use gamification to build daily learning habits, but balance with deeper reflection opportunities and contextual real-life applications.

Youtube / TikTok

  • Wide Range of Educational Content
  • Accessibility
  • Visual & Auditory Learning
  • Supplementary Learning
  • Engaging short form content
  • Creative Presentation
  • High User Engagement
  • Distractions
  • Variable Content Quality
  • Lack of Structured Learning Paths
  • Potential for Misinformation
  • Content Credibility
  • Embrace short-form modular content formats with embedded credibility markers and optional deeper dives
  • Implement distraction-minimized learning environments

Skill Share

  • Creative Focus
  • Project Based Learning
  • Community Engagement
  • Lack of Accreditation
  • Limited Depth
  • Subscription Required
  • Combine project-based learning with certification or resume-ready proof of skills
  • Offer freemium access to selected life skills topics

From the research, we developed a persona: Joelle – a smart, driven young adult, but totally overwhelmed by how much she doesn't know about adult life. She's trying to save for a trip, manage her money better, and figure out how insurance works… without digging through Reddit or watching 30-minute YouTube videos.

Persona

Meet Joelle

Project Persona.

Joelle is a young adult excited to start her next phase in life. While excited, she also feels overwhelmed by everything she's expected to know. She's trying to figure out how to track her expenses, cook more at home, and avoid overspending. At the same time, day-to-day things like separating laundry, defrosting chicken safely, or understanding lease terms leave her second-guessing herself.

Goals

  • Build financial independence by learning how to budget, save, and plan ahead
  • Feel confident handling daily adulting tasks without calling her parents
  • Learn life skills at her own pace, in a format that fits her busy schedule

Frustrations

  • Googling answers to everything and jumping between TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube
  • Overwhelmed by long videos or text-heavy articles that lack clear steps
  • Easily disengages from content that feels boring, generic, or outdated

Needs

  • A simple, engaging way to learn life skills like compound interest without guessing
  • Personalized progress and encouragement that keep her motivated

Problem Statement

Joelle, like many young adults, needs a mobile-friendly and trustworthy way to learn essential life skills—so she can build confidence and independence without relying on endless searches or trial and error.

Information Architecture

We mapped out a user flow and site map to keep the experience focused and digestible.

Key decisions

  • Radial progress tracker on homepage (more motivating than a basic bar)
  • Categorized learning modules with preview cards
  • Smart search and filtering for all content
  • Personal profile with saved progress

Proposed Redesigned Site Map

Brainstorming

What This Could Feel Like

Here's where we started ideating on possible features and how they would be presented. Individually we sketched out our ideas and combined our best ideas into a cohesive whole.

  • It needed to feel friendly, not formal
  • We wanted users to get small wins early—like checking off a lesson, earning a badge, or learning a simple skill

Some early ideas we explored:

  • A radial progress tracker instead of a linear bar
  • “Mini-guides” with quick wins: short, visual explanations for things like credit scores or budgeting basics
  • Modular learning with room to dive deeper if the user wanted
  • Optional certifications or badges for completed topics
  • A simple, card-style dashboard with saved guides and categories

We brought these ideas into a lo-fi prototype and started testing layouts and flows, focusing on a “learn something small today” approach rather than overwhelming users with entire courses.

Testing with Real People

We tested our low-fidelity prototype with 14 young adults using Maze. Tasks were focused on navigating through topics, and completing a knowledge check on a financial topic.

Results

  • 93% success rate on core flows
  • Minor friction due to Maze UI (not our prototype)
  • A hightened interest for even more interactivity in future versions (justifying a need for this type of app – users wanted to explore to learn more!)

"I really wanted to learn more!
I need this app in my life!"

– User feedback

Design

The Look & Feel

We chose a friendly, modern style using YMCS's branded colours. The YMCA's existing brand leaned towards a more younger audience, but we wanted this to feel a bit more fresh and young-adult focused.

  • Typography: Lato and Verdana for clean readability
  • Color palette: Blues and teals for trust, with warmer tones for personality
  • Tone of voice: Casual, supportive, never condescending

What We Built

Our final design included:

  • A mobile dashboard with visual progress
  • Short, digestible learning modules
  • Personalized profiles and saved content
  • A smooth, no-pressure onboarding flow
  • A section for mentorship and guidance chats

Note: For full experience, please view the Figma prototype on a desktop.

Final Deliverables

  • Clickable prototype in Figma
  • Full research & IA documentation
  • Wireflows & user flow
  • Presentation slide deck

Team Reflections

  • Loved working as a team—everyone brought unique insights
  • Prioritized impact over polish during tight iterations
  • Focused on core user pain points instead of trying to do everything
  • Learned the importance of balancing gamification with usefulness

Next Steps

  • Future updates may include gamification features to make learning modules more engaging.
  • YMCA can revisit their brand/style guide to ensure it resonates across age groups.
  • Present demo app to the target audience to get additional feedback and alignment with expectations & needs

Like to learn more about this project?

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