Igniting summer reading fun for kids with Rally Reader and Indigo Books
We helped Rally Reader and Indigo Books excite kids to pick up reading through a fun and challenging digital leaderboard environment.
Introduction
Rally Reader’s flagship app is becoming a staple on kids’ devices who want to practice their reading skills. The guided digital experiences teach kids how to read words correctly without the need of an external instructor. As summer rolls around, Rally Reader and Indigo Books, only the largest major book seller in Canada, have teamed up to create the Summer Soar Reading Challenge: an engaging reading challenge for kids across Canada.
Challenge
Rally Reader needed an amazing launch for their Summer Soar reading challenge within a short time frame. By collaborating with Indigo Books they aimed to expand their user base and make reading more appealing to kids. Together, they introduced daily and weekly challenges with exciting prizes, motivating kids to read both digitally and in print during the summer. Facing tight deadlines, they sought a partner who could handle everything.
Visual direction & motion
With the Rally Reader design library we created in an earlier stage as a solid foundation, our designers upped the “fun”. Making sure to use additional bold, expressive colors and motion scattered throughout. For example, the little characters really come to life when they start blinking, smiling and winking throughout the experience, rewarding kids for the reading effort they’ve made so far. All of this was made possible by the extra close collaboration between design and development, who were able to translate the motion ideas straight into code with GSAP for a smooth and optimized browsing experience.
Making reading a reward in itself
Ofcourse, extra challenges are fun and can motivate kids to go that extra mile. But with engaging copywriting in collaboration with the Rally Reader team, cherries on top with motion and overall ease of use throughout, the product really just makes kids *want* to read more… Just 5 more minutes to fill up the gauge and land that sweet spot on the leaderboard.
Set up for many more challenges to come
With this summer challenge being the premier, a lot more ideas have sparked at Rally Reader, Indigo Books and our own team. Whatever the outcome is: our team made sure that the designs and components are easy to adjust, rebuild and improve on for each new challenge to come. We can’t wait to ideate, design and build additional new features on this more-than-solid foundation!
