Specs

I collaborated with the school district's project manager, educator and student web developer to complete this project in eight short weeks. Starting with a pile of online links to .pdfs, I was responsible for naming this community project, organizing the content and designing the look, feel and functionality of the MathAtPlay website.

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The Problem

When the Madison School District brought this project to me, it was a web page with lists of links to downloadable .pdf worksheets. For this side project to take off, they needed parents and caregivers of young children to feel compelled to use the worksheets and tips to encourage their child's natural tendency to learn while they play and explore their world. The site needed to be organized, searchable, integrated with a blog and be translated into Spanish and Hmong so it could truly be a community resource.

 

​The Solution

After familiarizing myself with the content, the prominent message to communicate was how math is a significant part of every child's developmental process. At a very young age, children are absorbing information about spacial relationships, quantities, proportions and shapes which all play into their abiltiy to grasp more complex ideas as they grow. The second point to stress was that the goal of the content is to support a child's natural development process by turning casual, everyday activities into a fun learning experience without pressuring the child.

 

The name MathAtPlay carries dual meaning—math is being used during playtime, and math skills are at play in the child's
life as they learn and grow. Bright colors and clean, playful fonts set the tone for a kid-friendly focus. To bring structure to the site, I developed multiple systems for organizing the content based on age, topic, type of media and language. Using color-coding, keywords and simple navigational hierarchies, the site was transformed from an uncategorized list of links into a branded environment that is easy to navigate. I also placed the online training video workshops front and center on the home page so parents and caregivers can see how these principles are already being used by others in their own community.