St John Ambulance First Aid Badge

UX Lead • Project Lead

100,000 learning minutes spent • 8,500 completed badges • 12 - 16 year olds completed the badge

  • Role

    UX lead
    Product Owner
    Project Manager

  • Team

    Laura Pinkstone
    Kevin Triggle - Frontend Developer
    St John Ambulance team
    iDEA Foundation team

  • Key Services

    Storyboarding
    Product Management

01. Overview

St. John Ambulance sought to expand its first aid training reach, focusing on engaging young people aged 12-18 who may not respond to traditional methods. The challenge was to create a balance between educational content and interactive, gamified elements to make learning both enjoyable and effective.

iDEA Foundation who would be hosting the training were looking to partner with an agency which could adopted a micro-learning approach, breaking essential first aid skills into bite-sized, interactive modules. This would make the content more accessible, engaging, and easy for young learners to complete.

02. Problem

Before starting the project, several key challenges needed to be addressed to ensure its success and alignment with young people's needs.

Since first aid training is traditionally taught in person, the digital badge had to convey the same essential information in a gamified format while still effectively teaching practical first aid skills.

Additionally, it was crucial to make the experience engaging and meet young people's expectations. This required striking the right balance—ensuring the content was challenging enough to qualify as a gold badge while still equipping learners with the necessary first aid skills.

03. Design Process

I started by developing detailed storyboards and wireframes to map out the user journey, ensuring a seamless and intuitive learning experience. Working with the frontend developer we worked through several different ideas around the challenges that young people would need to complete to gain the badge. The storyboard allowed us to structure each stage of the digital badge, from introducing first aid concepts to interactive assessments.

To refine the experience, we held interactive sessions with iDEA and the St John Ambulance team to understand if this would meet the needs of the skills needed for first aid along with being challenging enough to meet the criteria for a Gold badge.

I also conducted online focus group sessions with St John Ambulance's young ambassadors to gather their feedback and provide valuable insights into making the content more engaging and relevant. This direct collaboration with the target audience ensured the final product resonated with them effectively.

Once the different scenarios had been agreed, working with the Illustrator and taking them through the storyboard and assets required he was able to develop a series of vibrant and engaging illustrations to enhance the learning experience. These illustrations were designed not only to explain first aid concepts clearly but also to make the learning process visually appealing and enjoyable.

By integrating these elements into the badge, the aim was to create a more immersive and interactive experience that would keep young learners engaged. This approach ensured that the educational content was both accessible and appealing, effectively balancing serious learning with elements of fun and engagement. This too was reviewed with St John Ambulance's young ambassadors to ensure before going into the development phase this would resonate with them.

As the project lead, I closely collaborated with the team at iDEA and the developers during the development phase, to gather content for the game along with ensuring accurate implementation and conducting rigorous quality assurance testing to meet functional and design requirements.

04. Solution & Results

Through careful storyboarding, research, planning, and management of the project, I was able to design and deliver an app that addressed the challenges of getting the skills to save lives but also instilling a sense of responsibility and civic duty.

Ensuring that key stakeholders were involved throughout the project I was able to make sure that all users’ needs were met from the content being medically accurate and up-to-date to the young people finding the first badge engaging.

In the first few months of the Badge being realised, we saw 100,000 learning minutes, 8,500 completed badges with most completing the badge between the age of 12 - 16 years old. The First Aid Badge was also awarded Best User Experience at the TBE Awards showcasing the success of the project.