Designers
Nara Vajaphattana, Kenzie Fraker, Ashlyn Luo
Year
2025
Category
Concept
Country
United States
Design Studio / Department
MIUX Studio
»Sprout bridges the digital literacy gap by providing a joyful, safe, and human approach to virtual mentorship. It tackles real educational needs for underserved youth, with measurable and sustainable pilot success. Research-driven improvements have transformed passive designs into culturally resonant and emotionally engaging figures. With its scalable, user-centered design model and seamless mentor onboarding process, Sprout enables fun, creative, and impactful learning experiences. In a world where equitable access to education remains challenging, Sprout stands out as a beacon of possibility, reimagining mentorship as a joyful, culturally sensitive, design-powered exchange.«
UX Design Awards Jury 2025 Autumn
Three questions to the project team
What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
Designing for multiple user types, including students, mentors, teachers, and admins in underserved, low tech environments presented a significant UX challenge. We needed to ensure the platform was easy to use for digitally inexperienced students while providing structure and trust for educators. The platform had to feel joyful and safe while delivering concrete outcomes. By prioritizing accessibility, cultural nuance, and character guided interactions, we created a role specific UX system that balanced emotional engagement with clarity, all within the constraints of a lean, no code MVP.
What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
A standout moment during mascot testing came from a focus group with young children. Their strong connection to energetic, expressive characters led to a full redesign, transforming passive designs into lively, culturally resonant figures. This confirmed emotional connection as a functional UX element, making the platform more engaging and fun.
A key challenge was that many users lacked basic digital literacy. We reframed onboarding with a layered session structure, simplified interface, and mentor led walkthroughs. We also added recorded class videos to resolve timing conflicts and serve as both a learning resource and a security measure.
Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?
In five years, we envision Tiny Sprouts Education as a globally scalable, character-driven learning ecosystem with multilingual support, gamified lesson tracks, and role-based dashboards for schools, volunteers, and CSR partners. Our studio will continue evolving the platform with human-first design and behavioral insights, expanding to new regions facing similar equity challenges. We see Tiny Sprouts Education not only reducing digital education gaps, but also redefining mentorship as a joyful, culturally sensitive, and design-powered exchange.
