The app existed, but it couldn't sustain itself. Every student activity required manual outreach to teachers - making the model operationally unsustainable as the user base grew. The challenge wasn't building something new. It was making what already existed work on its own.
Partner
I joined VIK School as an intern. There was no formal brief, no design team, no design system. There was a founder with a vision, an existing app that wasn't generating autonomous engagement, and a product that needed to grow.
VIK's mission is to bring UN 2030 Agenda topics into primary and middle school classrooms through interactive storytelling - with partners like the Comune di Roma, BPER Banca, and Universita La Sapienza backing the educational content.
What started as a redesign brief evolved into something much larger: the complete rethinking of a product ecosystem connecting students, teachers, and schools into a single experience.
My role: I was the sole designer working directly with the founder. No filters, no design reviews, no team of 20. Full ownership from research to shipped product - which meant both total creative freedom and total responsibility for every decision.
// Project Constraints
Limited Budget
No resources for extensive tooling or external research vendors. Everything had to be lean - guerrilla research, direct access, fast iteration.
Technical Boundaries
Some features were technically off-limits given development capacity. Design had to work within what could actually be built, not what could be imagined.
Engagement as North Star
The one non-negotiable requirement: the redesign had to make students want to come back every day, without needing teacher prompting.
Business vs. User Tension
Not every decision was mine to make. Learning to advocate for the user within a business-driven environment was part of the work.
The original VIK app had a structural problem: it couldn't activate on its own. For a student to do anything inside the app, someone at VIK had to manually contact a teacher, who then had to push students toward it. This wasn't a UX problem. It was a product viability problem.
Without a scalable activation mechanism, the app could never grow. Every new user required human effort from the VIK team. It was the opposite of a product.
The secondary problem was retention. The Daily Challenge was the only feature driving any meaningful repeat usage - but there was nothing around it to build a habit loop, reward progress, or give students a reason to come back tomorrow rather than next week.
// The original app's issues
Zero autonomous activation - every activity required manual teacher outreach by the VIK team
Weak gamification - XP existed but was confusing, disconnected from any meaningful reward
Overcomplicated onboarding - included a parent registration flow almost no one completed, adding friction without value
No teacher visibility - teachers couldn't see what students were doing, removing any classroom integration
01
In-School Observation
We went directly into primary and middle school classrooms to observe students in their natural environment - how they interact with content, with teachers, and with digital tools during lessons.
02
User Interviews
Conversations with 10+ students across different age groups and 4-5 teachers. We asked about habits, motivations, what made them engage or disengage with educational content.
03
Competitive Analysis
Analysis of engagement mechanics in apps students already used - Duolingo for streaks and badges, gaming live-service models for seasonal content, Xbox for XP and gamertag identity.
Students knew more than expected
Kids were far more aware of UN 2030 Agenda topics than anticipated. The content wasn't the problem - it was how it was delivered. They didn't need simpler content. They needed more engaging mechanics around it.
Competition drives engagement
Social dynamics in the classroom were powerful. Students were significantly more motivated when they could see how they compared to classmates and other schools. A leaderboard wasn't a nice-to-have - it was a core engagement lever.
Habit needs a daily hook
The Daily Challenge was the only thing bringing students back consistently. Everything else was one-off. The design needed to build more daily hooks - content that reset every day and gave students a reason to open the app.
Gender differences were contextual, not categorical
Girls tended to be more consistently attentive, but engagement varied more by individual interest than gender. Two User Personas - Marco and Giulia - were built to represent divergent mental models, not stereotypes.
Two personas representing divergent mental models. Marco is driven by competition and social proof; Giulia by learning, exploration, and personal growth. The design had to work for both.
Journey Map of a student's first experience - from registration to first story completion. Pain points clustered around onboarding complexity and unclear progression states.
Progression from bare wireframe to final high-fidelity screens. Each iteration introduced visual identity, character design, and refined interaction patterns based on testing feedback.
Full user flow from sign-up to core features: Stories, Daily Challenge, Season, and Leaderboard. The IA was designed to surface the Daily Challenge immediately from the Homepage, with progressive depth for returning users.
These are the decisions that defined the product: not the visual choices, but the structural ones. Each one was driven by research insight, constrained by technical reality, and sometimes fought for against business pressure.
Remove the parent onboarding flow
The original app required parents to register separately to track their child's progress. Almost nobody completed it - and it added significant complexity to the onboarding, the codebase, and the user flows. We cut it entirely. Students sign up with a class code. Simple, fast, done.
Removed featureRebuild XP to feel like real gaming
The original XP system existed but felt arbitrary - students couldn't connect actions to points to progress. I redesigned it to mirror the logic of Xbox gamertags: every action earns a clear, visible amount of XP, progress toward the next rank is always visible, and advancement feels earned. Students understood it immediately because they already knew the paradigm from gaming.
Core mechanic redesignAdd badges inspired by Duolingo
Students had no way to "prove" they'd completed something. After observing how satisfying Duolingo's badge system was for marking milestone completion, I introduced badges that activate when a student finishes a full project or a Season. They live on the profile - visible, collectable, shareable. A student who completes "Choose Your Future" has something tangible to show for it.
New featureIntroduce the Season system
Live-service games keep players engaged by rotating content on a fixed cycle - new challenges, new rewards, a sense that something is always happening. We borrowed this model. Every month, a new Season introduces fresh missions, challenges, and badge opportunities. It gives students a reason to come back even after completing existing content, and gives VIK a structured content publishing rhythm.
New featureRemove Gems - simplify the economy
At one point the app had two currencies: XP and Gems. The vision was a reward store (similar to My Nintendo), but it wasn't technically feasible to build. Without a redemption mechanic, Gems were confusing - students couldn't understand what they were for. We removed them entirely. One currency, one purpose, zero confusion.
Removed featureDesign the VIK Ecosystem
The biggest shift wasn't inside the app - it was realizing the app couldn't work in isolation. A student's journey needed to start in the classroom (teacher + ebook on the interactive whiteboard), continue at home (app activities, Daily Challenge, Season), and be visible to teachers (dashboard). Designing the connective tissue between these three touchpoints - the Ecosystem - transformed VIK from an app into a platform.
Strategic designThe redesigned VIK app is built around three core pillars: a daily habit loop, a meaningful progression system, and a classroom ecosystem that activates itself - no manual outreach needed.
Three touchpoints. One continuous learning loop.
Classroom
Teacher assigns the project. Students read the interactive ebook on the whiteboard together - acting out characters, answering group questions.
App
Students download the app, rewarded for classroom activity. Daily Challenges, Stories, Season missions and leaderboards keep them coming back every day.
Dashboard
Teachers monitor progress per class, assign new content, and access ebook links - all without contacting VIK. The ecosystem runs itself.
Simplified sign-up with class code. Home surfaces the Daily Challenge immediately, with season progress and leaderboard position always visible.
The Daily Challenge resets every 24 hours - the primary daily hook. XP earned is shown immediately after completion, rank progress always visible.
Interactive stories let students engage with VIK projects in narrative format. Completing a full story unlocks a badge - a clear, satisfying signal of achievement.
Individual and school leaderboards. Season view shows monthly missions, active challenges, and time remaining - borrowing the live-service rhythm from gaming.
Testing wasn't a single phase - it was continuous. We moved fast from wireframes to high-fidelity, launched, and used real user behavior to drive iteration over the following months.
Moderated usability sessions were held in-person, with students asked to complete specific tasks: find the Daily Challenge, check their rank, complete a story chapter. Watching where they hesitated, got confused, or succeeded told us more than any questionnaire.
Initial Prototype Testing
First round with students - focused on core flows: onboarding, Daily Challenge, and navigation. Main finding: students navigated confidently but completion states were unclear.
Post-Launch Observation
After the first live version, we collected behavioral data and teacher feedback. Students were engaging with Daily Challenges but dropping off after completing stories - they didn't realize they'd finished.
Iterative Improvements
Multiple rounds of targeted fixes based on live data: clearer completion states, Gems removed, badge system introduced, Season mechanics added. Each change tracked against engagement metrics.
Students couldn't tell when they'd finished a story. They'd complete the last chapter and keep tapping, unsure if there was more content. The fix: badges. Completing a story now unlocks a visible badge on the profile - a clear, satisfying signal that something is done. The confusion disappeared immediately in subsequent testing.
The dual-currency system (XP + Gems) created constant confusion. Students earned Gems but had no idea what to do with them. Without a reward store to redeem them, they were noise. We cut Gems entirely. One currency, one purpose. Post-removal feedback was immediately cleaner.
Available now on both stores
Download the app and see the final product in action.
"Mi e piaciuto tanto perche ho imparato il funzionamento e mi ha dato una lezione su cosa fare in modo differente."
Primary school student"Mi ha fatto conoscere cose nuove e credo che questo gioco aiutera molte persone."
Middle school student"Mi e piaciuto come sono riusciti a farci interagire con la lezione."
Student"Mi e piaciuto che la lezione era un gioco."
StudentStudent autonomy: "Gli studenti hanno proseguito con le proprie gambe" - after initial introduction, students continued independently without teacher prompting.
Real-world connection: Stories with relatable protagonists created immediate recognition - students could apply content to real situations like personal finance and social choices.
Teacher accessibility: "Non richiedeva una preparazione pregressa complessa" - no specialist knowledge required. Any teacher could use it. One teacher said: "Lo istituzionalizzerei... la rifarei l'anno prossimo."
Gamification as learning driver: "La competizione aiuta a veicolare i contenuti e permette di ricordare meglio i concetti" - competition improved both engagement and content retention.
I'd invest more in gamification depth and flow clarity from the start. Some teachers still need manual prompting today - which means the autonomous activation problem isn't fully solved. The Season system could offer much more: more content rotation, more personalisation, more reasons to come back each month. And I'd push harder for design decisions that prioritized long-term user habit over short-term business requests - even when I didn't have the data to back it up yet.
Not the app itself. The fact that thousands of students use it every day, enjoy it, and learn something while competing with their classmates. I came in as an intern with no brief and no team. Two years later there's a live ecosystem on both app stores, institutional partnerships, and kids telling us the lesson felt like a game. That's the work.
