PBS KIDS for Parents

PBS KIDS is the number-one educational media brand for children. It reaches homes throughout the country and helps prepare children for kindergarten. In addition to providing this valuable content on the web and television, PBS KIDS also serves the grown-ups in kids’ lives through content and community-based events.

I led the redesign of the PBS KIDS for Parents brand and website. In my role, I worked closely with content, product, marketing, design, and other teams to design this new brand system, website, and other materials for PBS KIDS.

In 2017, the PBS KIDS for Parents brand and website was outdated and ready for reassessment. The website was full of valuable content, but it was not mobile-friendly, making it difficult for parents to read on the go. This redesign project would not only create a modern, responsive design, but also make improvements to improve circulation throughout the website and with other tools like social integrations, marketing campaigns, and station localization.

This redesign project was focused on creating a product built to support and engage parents. Additionally, PBS KIDS for Parents had started a child development tracker tool that was ready to be fully integrated into the website. We set about creating improved user flows for the end users of the website as well as regular content contributors using a content management system to update the website.

The Logo

Leaning into the PBS KIDS Brand

Stakeholder Interviews and Workshops

Talking to those who know the brand and Product best

We started the project with stakeholder interviews. I usually outline interview protocol for these and then expand the questions asked based on the interviewee’s role and responsibilities. To help stakeholders talk about the brand and document their input, I created a Visual Gut-Check Survey using Typeform. This was completed independently by some stakeholders before interviews. For senior executives, this became a conversation starter within our interviews.

After meeting with stakeholders in independent stakeholder interviews, it became clear that the design team had three major goals: create a seamless brand experience between this product and PBS KIDS, create a memorable design that builds off of that brand, and create an empowering user experience for parents.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis helped to scan the field and better understand where brands were going. This helped us decide on the “for parents” brand decision, along with encouraging a visual direction that leaned on the PBS KIDS logo.

At the same time as I worked on the competitive scan, I also created a moodboard to capture snapshots of websites and products that inspired both myself and other team members.

Rough Logos and User Research

Constantly reaching out to our target audience

After executing several rounds of surveys and lean user testing with rough logos, we developed the new PBS KIDS for Parents brand. This brand, which was previously known as PBS Parents, directly pulls in the PBS KIDS branding through the logo and also makes it clear that the product is for parents. You can see the newly developed brand with mockups here. Developing this brand was the first step in creating the redesigned website.

This branding is also applied to digital and print materials through the PBS and member station ecosystem. This collateral includes pieces I created including video branding, email marketing, social media shareables and promos, and apps. I worked with two of our designers, Lauren Puglisi and Laura King, to develop a full style guide and system for the PBS KIDS for Parents brand so that it can live and breathe among different products, contexts, and teams.

Icons

Icons and illustrations based on PBS KIDS branding

In Use

I created assets for marketing, video, and development

Early on in the design process, I worked with our content team to clarify the intended structure of the website and develop a sitemap for the website. This helped us to not only brainstorm the structure of the website, but to also create a controlled vocabulary for what we intended to build. 

The PBS KIDS for Parents team worked with an external agency to research our parents audience and develop several parent segments that we used throughout the redesign process: Learning Lover, Play Partner, Success Seeker, and Appreciator. 

Each section and page template on the site corresponds to at least one of these personas and their goals when it comes to helping their children. Additionally, we created a structure throughout our pages that would make it easier to create scannable, visually-driven content.

Throughout the workshop series, I collaborated with multiple stakeholders to whiteboard wireframes for each of our page templates. From these sessions, I developed iterative sketched and then digital wireframes. I then used these to build a clickable prototype for lean testing with parents.

This testing usually involves several rounds of listening to feedback from our target audience, developing revised prototypes, and gathering more feedback.

Whiteboards and Sketchbooks

When stakeholders are open to it, I love whiteboarding wireframes as a team. This allows us to creatively brainstorm how we might solve the problems of our users and create something that goes beyond anything we could each create individually. The sum is greater than the parts.

Adobe, Sketch, Invision, and Usability Testing

After collaborating with stakeholders and sketching different ideas, I create digital wireframes using Sketch and the Adobe Suite. I then use the wireframes to create clickable prototypes in a tool like inVision and then share with our target audience—in this case, parents of kids ages 2-8.

Once we had a finalized visual direction, I applied it to mockups for different screen resolutions and did final rounds of lean usability testing to make final decisions. Our activity finder tool went through the most usability testing, as I wanted to get the filtering experience “just right” for parents who will be using it to find activities and games that they can play with their children. 

The most exciting part was developing an activity finder tool for parents to discover educational games and activities they can play with their kids. Usability testing allowed me to confidently create the dozens of desktop, tablet, and mobile mockups that went into development.

Play

An activity finder for Parents

Over the decades, PBS KIDS has not only developed dozens of shows, but also hundreds of games, activities, apps, assets, and more related to those shows. These activities provide wonderful ways for parents to engage their kids in ways that support learning. The Activity Finder helps parents to quickly and easily sort through these activities to find ones perfect for their kids.

Thrive

Articles from Other Parents

The PBS KIDS for Parents Blog combines articles from parents, experts, show producers, and more about helping children thrive. Like the rest of the website, I designed an experience that would translate well across different platforms on and off screen.

Shows

Bringing it back to PBS KIDS

PBS KIDS for Parents is all about PBS KIDS! Parents in testing wanted to easily browse content by the shows that their kids watch.

Throughout this process, we strategized a measurement plan to ensure that we could understand user acquisition, reach, and engagement. While I am no longer working directly on this team, I know that they will continue finding ways to increase reach and engagement in order to better support parents. I also expect that we will find opportunities to integrate our parent and teacher products more in the future, and to create enhanced voice and audio experiences for parents and kids.