Independent creative studio, Acamar Films, required support for their app "developed for little fingers and growing minds". The 'Bing: Watch, Play, Learn’ app. is based on the BAFTA-nominated and International Emmy Award-winning, animated series, Bing.
The app ‘Bing: Watch, Play, Learn’ launched in September 2019 extending the 3D animated award-winning series into the digital realm and offering children a fun and interactive platform to further engage with their favourite characters and stories. Whether it’s watching episodes, listening to songs and audio stories, playing games, or exploring various educational activities, ‘Bing: Watch, Play, Learn’ provides an enriching experience for young learners.
Acamar Films had a clear goal: to make the app a delightful and seamless experience for their young users, boost active usage and increase the number of adults converting to the premium tier of Bing: Watch, Play, Learn. Organisationally ASquared were brought in to be digital product partners of Acamar's growing digital team. The main challenges for the team were to:
With the goal of increasing the number of paying subscribers, we kicked off the project with a bespoke workshop to align the product team with Acamar Films’ business objectives. Then, our discovery journey began with a qualitative investigation of parents' attitudes around their use of digital media as entertainment for their toddlers. Learning about parents’ needs, goals and pain points around this decision opened up a world of potential avenues to explore how we could improve the parent’s journey within the Bing: Watch, Play, Learn app.
Discovery also provided insights which have been used by other teams at Acamar.
Based on the parent interviews, we were able to formulate assumptions that would strengthen the app’s subscription rates. This in turn paved the way for a well-structured discovery roadmap, ensuring the design activities flowed seamlessly and that the project’s progress could be effectively monitored.
We tracked our research using the ‘Opportunity Solution Tree’ framework. This strategic approach enabled us to structure our research and hone in on logical solutions that directly impacted the parent’s ‘point of purchase’ experience. This also enabled us to look at improvements to explore during future phases of work.
Applying a user-centric approach led to the development of three fully interactive prototypes, all of which were validated through additional parent interviews. The team also established a robust Figma Design System, defining fonts, colours and spacing to ensure consistency throughout the app’s modules and layouts.
This prototyping allowed the Acamar Films team to understand the sentiment around the proposed new features, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the messaging of our recommended subscription plans.
Effective collaboration was a cornerstone of the project. ASquared regularly shared working prototypes and fostered collaboration among design, technology and the Acamar Films team. Weekly playbacks were conducted to ensure that design thinking, research findings and technology choices were visible and open for discussion.
Throughout the project, we maintained high delivery standards, aligning with Acamar Films’ broader strategy and business outcomes. The team facilitated effective communication, regularly monitoring progress and identifying potential risks early by working collaboratively.
Key activities involved updating React Native core libraries, migrating to GitHub Actions from CircleCi, the introduction of a new branching structure, and setting up Sentry error logging for improved error tracking. We also conducted extensive bug fixing, including memory consumption, profiling, and autoplay enhancements, addressed numerous defects and reduced technical debt.
ASquared’s technological enhancements included increased architecture stability, more efficient frontend performance, and a thorough code review. System performance and stability were also optimised which resulted in improved efficiency and reduced occurrences of crashes.
Acamar's strong heritage in producing enriching animated children's content and experiences are a testament to their commitment to storytelling and design excellence. We are proud that Acamar have identified ASquared as a trusted product delivery team to work in close collaboration with their existing in-house design team for the future.
We’ve seen some really positive initial results since launching the new app. In the first two months, compared to last year:
‘10/10, intelligent, diligent and motivated with great communication. I have loved the pro-activeness and approachability, and being able to communicate with the entire team including the technical team’.
Claire Brossard, Executive Director, Digital Strategy.
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