UX/UI Designer
Moonshot Pirates global educational platform dedicated to empowering young leaders and changemakers across various sectors. They offer a range of Boot Camps and initiatives aimed at fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, and the development of 21st-century skills among youth from over 150 countries.
Moonshot Pirates asked me and a group of students from the Talent Garden to design a platform or feature to keep Pirates engaged after Moonshot Pirate Bootcamp.
Team Member: Andrea Kislova, Friederike Seppeler, Wolfgang Fargel.
Survey :
We had the chance to start run a survey to learn what young people think about innovation and how they go about starting a project or idea. We also asked how they feel about entering the working world.
Survey’s executive summery: - Number of participants: 167
- Age of the participants: between 16 and 19 years old
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57%
of 18 years have no idea of their future creer path.
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81% of young people have a field of interest, but only 18% have an idea of how to turn it into a future job.
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53% have an innovative idea they'd like to develop.
Interviews :
The insights we gathered from the survey helped us shape an interview script designed to dive deeper. Our goal was to identify pain points and uncover meaningful perspectives on how to better support young people in developing their own business ideas.
Interview’s executive summery: - Number of participants: 15
- Age of the participants: between 14 and 19 years old
- Country: Austria-Germany-Poland-Slovakia
“The Exchange with others and seeing what they are doing would help me finding my passion.”
- Lisa, 16, Germany
“I don’t really see the value of me working alone on an idea. I would like to work with others and get input and some inspiration by different people.”
- Marko, 17, Slovakia
Design phase
After completing the research phase, we translated our insights into action. The key takeaway: young users crave interactive and collaborative experiences. We decided to create a live content platform where participants—called "pirates"—could apply to projects, either solo or in groups, and explore, comment, and engage with other pitches and submissions.
Brainstorming
We ran two focused brainstorming sessions to evaluate and select the strongest concept. Once the direction was clear, we worked on simplifying the idea to its core—prioritizing clarity and usability to maximize engagement and retention among the pirates.
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Paper Wireframes
With a clear concept in mind, we moved to paper. We sketched out every major step and screen of the app to organize our ideas and align on the user journey before moving to higher fidelity.
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Testing & Iterations
Our paper mockup allowed us to conduct rapid usability testing with 5 users. The feedback was immediate and actionable. Based on their input, we quickly iterated and refined the design, going through three rounds of improvements to ensure the platform felt intuitive and engaging.
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Building on the final paper prototype, we created the first low-fidelity wireframe in Figma. This step helped us define the structure of each screen more precisely, map out navigation patterns and gesture interactions, and begin optimizing the overall layout. We also conducted another round of testing to ensure the user journey felt logical and intuitive before moving forward.
High Resolution Mockup
We developed a clickable high-resolution prototype in Figma, integrating the Moonshine Pirate logo while creating an original branding for our “Accelerator” product. Our goal was to convey fun, energy, and innovation—so we went for a bold 80’s-inspired visual style designed to resonate with our young, creative audience. The look & feel helped bring the concept to life and made the experience stand out.
Final Phase
To validate our concept, we conducted in-depth testing sessions with two real “pirates” from our target group. Through direct feedback and open interviews, we gained valuable insights into how they interacted with the prototype, what excited them, and where we could still improve. These real-user perspectives were essential to refine our final design.
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Zahra - 17 years old
London, UK
“Yeah so this just feels like normal social media app, working perfectlyfor me” “It’s kind of like tik-tok, instagram... “
- Introduction video of the app when initially opened to explain modality
- Upload button to not be forced to create video in this app
- Possibility to edit caption of video
- Progress bar clearly indicates where I am and what’s upcoming
- Mentor & Help button are clear
- Straight forward approach and simplicity of use
- Support through mentors and helping resources
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Rhys - 16 years old
Bristol, UK
"Great to have one place with all the challenges — easy to choose from and join, alone or with friends."
- I miss an Home Screen or menue where I can view my profile, settings, challenges I have participated in ...
- Explanation of the prompter functionality is missing
- I would like to be able to edit teh name of the pitch
- The workflow is super clear (task, steps, videos, pitch)
- Pink action buttons are always clear on all screens
- Space design with orbit looks really cool
- Working remotely with friends on inspiring challenges is a great feature