Kindship (formerly known as AbleFinder) is an Australian social start-up that wants to battle isolation among parents of children with a disability. It's their ambition to be the kindest of all social media platforms, by offering a safe and friendly space for parents to inform, empower, and connect with each other.

They offer a "match and chat" experience and a community platform to share experiences, ideas, tips, and tricks.

Challenge

When I joined the project, there was already a beta version that had been released to a limited group of parents. As I was the first UX writer coming in, I had the chance to make a difference by taking the copy to the next level and creating a nicely polished and engaging experience throughout the entire product.

The copy had to be clear, concise, and useful, but ideally also had to carry out the spirit of kindness of the Kindship brand to really resonate with this very specific target audience.

Goals

As the first review of the app had to be done quickly, I had to pick my battles in the beginning. I started the review with a few goals in mind:

• Create consistency with a content style guide
• Create voice and tone guidelines that resonate with the target audience
• Improve clarity throughout the entire product
• Flag instances where the design could be clearer or simpler

Process

Throughout the process, I had the pleasure to work very closely with Andrius, Kindship's Chief Product Officer and Gleb, the UX designer. It was an intense, but really enjoyable collaboration!

Research

Before diving into the work, I took some time to get up to speed on different aspects of the product:

• The vision behind the product
• The pain points, needs, expectations, and concerns of the users

Before building the Kindship app, the founders of the company did a few hundred interviews with families that have a child with a disability. They both have an incredibly deep understanding of the challenges their target audience face. During many meetings and discussions where I could pick their brain, I quickly gained a clearer picture of what the target audience was looking for and how the product could address these needs.

I started by drafting a rudimentary content style guide, terminology list, and voice and tone directions to ensure consistency. A few months later, I refined and expanded this style guide together with some other team members to cover more aspects of the overall content experience.