Designing a mobile app that connects justice-impacted youth with their case managers through goal tracking, messaging, events, and rights education in order to sustain engagement and accountability beyond in-person sessions.
This project followed a 14-week journey consisting of 4 main phases. Emphasis was placed on conducting thorough research and user testing.
Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY) is a San Francisco–based nonprofit serving roughly 2,500 high-need youth impacted by the justice system. Through legal education, mentoring, and leadership programs, FLY supports children and young adults ages 11–24 from underserved communities.
“FLY’s mission is to partner with youth to unlock their potential, disrupt the pipeline to prison, and advance justice in California and beyond.”
In the early meetings with our client, Melissa, she revealed the issues currently faced by the youth members and case managers at FLY.
Youth oftentimes lose their paper-based goal trackers.
Outside of monthly check-ins, youth are not engaged with the program.
Youth have trouble staying educated on their rights.
"Because case managers only have a limited amount of time to meet with each youth member every month, youth are not effectively engaged with the program outside of session hours."
How might we help youth1. stay engaged with FLY
2. stay accountable with their goals
3. continue learning independentlywhile helping case managers provide effective support?
Apps like Remind, Quizlet, and Google Calendar each had components of the features we wanted to integrate into the solution.
Our competitive analysis revealed several patterns and opportunities:
Opportunity: Create a single platform that reduces context switching and keeps FLY resources accessible in one place.
Opportunity: Transform "Know Your Rights" content into interactive learning experiences through quizzes, flashcards, and matching games.
Opportunity: Incorporate goal progress tracking, milestones, and affirmations to help youth recognize their growth over time.
Several key insights surfaced across our conversations.
Long-term goals feel overwhelming to youth.
Support is limited to in-person sessions, so momentum fades in the weeks between meetings.
Youth feel uncertain and unprepared when facing real legal situations.
Case managers struggle to track youth progress between sessions.
The bottom line was clear: youth needed accountability, connection, and independent learning and case managers needed visibility into it all.
Translating research into scope, I mapped the feature set across two audiences — youth and case managers — plus the shared foundation that ties the experience together.
A mobile app that connects youth with case managers through goal tracking, messaging, event sign-ups, resources, and progress reports supporting engagement and accountability well beyond in-person meetings.
Since case managers frequently work on the field, they expressed the convenience of having a mobile experience that mirrored how youth would be interacting with the app.
A mobile view makes large amounts of data harder to manage.
Keeps important case manager messages from getting lost in conversation and avoids inappropriate texts.
Less room for open community and socializing between youth members.
Usability testing resulted in three crucial improvements to our design.
In testing, many case managers expressed wanting to see more metrics presented in the youth reports to get a more accurate idea of how youth members are performing.
BeforeLimited report
AfterThe redesigned youth report adds crucial information like number of events attended, appointments missed, app usage, and mentor–youth interaction.
Youth members expressed that daily streaks created too much pressure to maintain. It made interactions feel more stressful than motivating.
BeforeDaily streaks system
AfterA more manageable weekly streaks system that prioritizes maintaining long-term motivation.
Based on case manager feedback, many wanted to be able to comment on youths' goals in order to facilitate further asynchronous communication and alignment on goal progress.
BeforeNo coach input
AfterCoach suggestions lets case managers review youths' goals and add comments even when youth members aren't physically in session.
Throughout the project I received mentorship and feedback from experienced designers and researchers, and on Develop for Good's Demo Day, our team presented to a panel of Bloomberg and Cisco professionals!
“Working with the design team has truly been an insightful, productive, and impactful experience. The team arrives to meetings prepared with questions, recommendations, and high-quality work to share. This app will revolutionize the way that staff and youth engage with the meaningful work that we do. Thank you for translating the FLY magic into a powerful tool for education, agency building, and connection for our youth.”
Out of all the teams presenting at Develop for Good's Demo Day, ours took home the Most Impactful award. It was a meaningful affirmation that the work didn't just look polished, but it stood to make a real difference in the lives of justice-impacted youth!
I learned to translate design intent strategically into language that our nonprofit partner could understand by meeting them where they are instead of leading with technical jargon.
When the team disagreed, user research and data became our tiebreaker. Letting evidence settle debates kept us aligned and grounded our decisions in logic rather than opinion.
With 11 features and limited time, I learned to weigh importance against technical feasibility in order to develop what mattered most without dropping the supporting structure.
Designing for justice-impacted youth demanded extra empathy and simplicity. Every screen had to feel safe, clear, and genuinely supportive.
A huge thank you to the Develop for Good program and my amazing team for this wonderful opportunity!
