Storytime is a guided storytelling mobile app that helps caregivers and young children co-create and record structured stories together.
Designed for children ages 2–6, it introduces lightweight narrative scaffolding that reduces caregiver idea fatigue while encouraging expressive language, imaginative play, and emotional connection.
In a fast-paced digital environment dominated by passive content consumption, Storytime explores how interaction design can make creative participation feel more approachable and rewarding.A client of Primary.Health reached out with an ambitious project: make grant management used by public health agencies easier and more modern.
My role
I led Storytime end-to-end, defining the opportunity, shaping the storytelling framework, designing the complete experience and visual system, and building a functional mobile MVP using Cursor, Expo, and React Native with backend integration for authentication and audio storage with Supabase.
Impact
Making storytelling easier to start Structureddynamic prompts reduce the pressure on caregivers to invent stories from scratch.
Turning storytelling into a shared activity instead of passive listening The guided flow encourages back-and-forth conversation and child participation.
Helping families capture meaningful moments Real-time recording allows stories (including funny or suprising language) to be saved and replayed.
Introducing safe, perosonalization for young users Curated character and prompt systems allow stories to feel relevant without creating emotional or social risk.
Building technical and product execution depth Shipping a functional mobile MVP with recording and backend integration.
Overview
StoryTime guides storytelling through a repeatable narrative flow:
Character –> Place –> Problem –> Action –> Ending
Each stage provides open-ended prompts that spark ideas without dictacting outcomes. Stories are recorded in real time and compiled into replayable audio experiences.
It started with an observation
My mom often struggled to come up with stories, feeling "stressed coming up with ideas" and overwhelmed by a sense of "pressure to perform".
This brought up some ideas: some people want to co-create stories but need a bit more supportive structure and reassurance.
This observation became the starting point for exploring how design could make stortelling easier to initiate, safer to experiment with, and joyful to keep up overtime.
The interaction model is designed to feel supportive rather than instructional. A tool to build confidence overtime.
Untitled has saved us thousands of hours of work. We’re able to spin up projects and features faster.
Web Developer, Quotient
Defining user journeys
I dedicated a lot of time thinking through what the main flows would be, how users onboard and setup stories, and the experience of replaying them.
I also defined different edge cases along the way to ensure all possible paths were accounted for.
Early design explorations
Learning fast, iterating faster
Early concepts tested prompt density, navigation patterns, and recording affordances to balance structure and freedom. Later iterations reduced prompt volume, introduced gated prompt logic, and clarified story progression.
Untitled has saved us thousands of hours of work. We’re able to spin up projects and features faster.
Web Developer, Quotient
Recording triggered manually at each stage
In my early brainstorms, I considered asking users to determine if they'd like to record before starting the next arc.
I changed this framework for a couple reasons: it broke the natural flow by adding an additional screen per arc and it requires additional clicks when users expect the recording continues as soon as it starts.
Unecessary visual complexity
I explored introducing a unique color treatment per arc, to add more visual interest and a separate layer to communicate to the user what stage they are in.
I determined after early testing that this combination of color variation and iconography added more distration and took away focus from the main actions.
Context shared for each arc
Thinking it would be helpful to users, I explored a 'context' screen before starting each arc. This would give helpful guidance around what to expect in this arc, as well as a built in 'breather' before starting the next part of the story.
I determined this added more forced friction and broke up the natural flow of storytelling. Arc-specific context and guidance is instead better suited for progressive disclosure, and would be moved into the top hamburger menu for all story-building screens.
final designs
A smoother, more natural flow
Later iterations reduced prompt volume, introduced gated prompt logic, and clarified story progression.
Untitled has saved us thousands of hours of work. We’re able to spin up projects and features faster.
Web Developer, Quotient
Single, introductory story context
Before starting each story, the user is reminded of the high level flow, and the option to continue without recording by default. This is a more passive 'breather' to confirm they're ready to begin the story, and allows them to later pause the story if and when needed.
More age-appropriate language
I refined the arcs, removing "The Twist" entirely, given its added complexity to this age range. I also revised the headlines, making the arc names more accessible and enaging to kids 2-6.
I then pull in earlier selections into headlines, so it continues to feel personalized, special, and match natural storytelling framing.
Create a growing library of stories
Think of opening Spotify and listening to an album or picking your favorite songs. That is the mental model for the growing library of stories recorded.
At the library page, there are each place is a unique color and icon.
When looking 'inside' a story, they can play from the start, or revisit their favorite parts individually.
A personal madlibs to keep or share out
Users have the option to generate their own story-based madlibs to keep or share with friends and family. It's currently manual due to MVP status but imagine the possibility of sound bites pre-filling this, the magic for kids and the nostalgia for adults who grew up making their own silly madlibs.
This has the possibility to support future growth by sharing out to social media.
Reflection
In a short timeframe, this project massively grew my experience from optimizing efficiency in complex clinical systems to simply designing for joy, in a space I care deeply about as a mom to a deeply imaginative toddler, and professional with a career history that extends to early childhood learning and development.
It reinforced the value of designing for real behavioral friction, using guardrails as empowerment and safety, and building functional products to deepen my learning.
Untitled has saved us thousands of hours of work. We’re able to spin up projects and features faster.
Web Developer, Quotient
Future considerations
There is the possibility this can continue to iterate.
Shared story libraries across families, longitudinal language development archives, educator and speech therapy applications, adaptive prompt intelligence, and even potentially sustainable monetization pathways.
Untitled has saved us thousands of hours of work. We’re able to spin up projects and features faster.
