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Services
Web Design & Development -
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Empowered parents, confident kids.
The Challenge
In the U.S., 1 in 5 children struggle with learning and attention issues. That's 15 million kids. They're as smart as their peers, but face challenges with reading, math, writing, focus and organization. With the right strategies and support, they can succeed in the classroom and outside of it too. But many parents don’t know where to turn for support about what they can do to help their children academically, socially and emotionally.
Fifteen nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping children with learning and attention issues came together to create Understood, a resource for these families. The challenge: Build a comprehensive, responsive, easy-to-use, and free online resource that gives parents customized information and support for each step of their journey, including daily access to experts and an on-site community. Because many children with learning and attention issues do not have—and may never get—a diagnosis, this resource needed to help both parents who don’t know yet why their children are struggling as well as parents whose children have a diagnosis.
The Solution
We knew from research involving more than 2,000 parents of children with learning and attention issues that they needed a rich resource, but one that was intuitive and clean as well. Working with the fifteen nonprofit organizations and selected learning and attention issue experts, we created a personalization strategy to provide parents with content sorted by school grade and type of issue, among other factors, so they would not have to wade through irrelevant information. Personalization had to offer the right amount of choice and be guided by expert judgment about the best content for each stage of the journey. And it had to put parents in the driver’s seat. We also created an on-site, safe community so parents can help one another, used accessibility best practices for users with their own learning and attention issues, and created a full Spanish mirror site. And we designed a suite of interactive tools so parents can customize their experience as they seek answers.
The Result
We were able to create a streamlined yet robust experience that is simple to navigate. Augmented by Understood’s “Your Parent Toolkit,” “Through Your Child’s Eyes” allows parents to experience their child’s difficulties and frustrations through videos and game-like simulations. Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and engagement has beaten industry standards. Understood.org helps parents understand their child’s learning and attention issues and supports them with strategies that can enable their children to go from simply coping to truly thriving in school and life.
Awards and Acclaim
