About IPMF - Video copyright & ownership by Belongg
IPMF - Inclusive Product Management Fellowship Program
IPMF was India’s first Fellowship program that helped Product Managers build inclusive products that serve diverse users & explore untapped markets.
It was a five-month product inclusion accelerator that worked with a select group of Product Managers from pioneering tech product companies in India and helped them craft inclusive product features that meet the needs of diverse users.
10+ Companies
20 Fellows
Impact - 5M users
Role
I joined in Product Designer to help fellows bring inclusion to their products- it included research, ideation, prototyping, auditing, user interaction and dev hand-off.
I worked with 2 organisation for Inclusion - Chimple & FMCH
Team
Shubhangi – Product Design Lead
Sookthi – Research Intern
Chimple Team – Developer, Project Manager, Special Education Educator
Timeline
During the duration, I worked with multiple organisation but focused on Chimple & FMCH.
June 2024 - November 2024
Accessibility & Inclusion ( Not the same )
Accessibility refers to the design of products, services, or environments to ensure that they can be used by all people, including people with disabilities.
Inclusion, on the other hand, goes beyond accessibility to create an environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and included.
Process
1. Starting Point- Defining User & Identification of Challenges
2. Problem Discovery - Problem Statement Framework & Opportunity Statement
3. Research - Primary Research, Secondary Research, TAM (Total Addressable Market)
4. Insights
5. Solutioning - Prototyping
CHIMPLE
About
Chimple is a free learning educational app for children, from toddlers to preschoolers and kindergarten toto help with early literacy.
Chimple Kids features a series of educational games in English, Maths, Hindi, and Digital Skills to help kids recognize numbers and start training with additions, and subtraction puzzle, to identify letter shapes, associate them with phonic sounds, noun, verb, sentences, vowels, and put the alphabets knowledge to use in fun matching lessons.
Mobile & Tablet
1L + Users
Andrioid Device Compatible
4.6 Rating
Defining User
Our target users were children aged 5 to 14 who are visually and/or hearing impaired, coming from diverse geographical locations across the country, ranging from urban Tier 1 cities to rural villages.
This user group requires educational tools tailored to their specific sensory disabilities and needs adaptive learning methods to support both their cognitive development and accessibility to resources.
Identification of Challenges:
For Visually Impaired Children: These users face significant challenges in interacting with mobile devices due to the lack of accessible interfaces.
Many educational apps do not have robust support for screen readers, voice commands, or tactile feedback, making it difficult for visually impaired children to navigate the platform independently.
For Hearing Impaired Children: Hearing-impaired users may struggle with understanding audio-based instructions or content.
Additionally, if they are unfamiliar with sign language, this creates further barriers to communication and learning. Many apps do not offer text-based alternatives or subtitles, and there is limited support for visual cues that aid in comprehension.
Research Process
Primary Research - Expert Conversation and School Visits
Secondary Research - Studied accessibility guidelines, tools, apps and learning goals for young children with disabilities.
User Observation - Observed visually and hearing-impaired children using educational apps to identify accessibility challenges and improvement opportunities.
Expert Conversation & School Visits
For Primary Research, we conducted expert conversations and school visits. We consulted Kanika, a Deaf Educator, and Srinivasu, an accessibility expert with visual impairment, to understand accessibility challenges.
Additionally, we visited three special education schools in Bengaluru to gather insights from educators on curriculum, teaching methods, and accessibility needs. These interactions helped us understand key requirements for inclusive learning.
Insight Mapping
Key Insights
Hearing Impaired students face significant language lags, making it difficult to understand educational content.
Mental/learning age and chronological age are often different. This may be because of lack of effective/accessible education at the appropriate age.
They need more opportunities to practice sign language and text outside of class.
Deaf and visually impaired students benefit from multi-sensory and experiential learning.
A single-disability focus is not sustainable; accessibility should be inclusive for all.
VI students may struggle with spatial awareness and require structured guidance in navigating environments.
Include multiple input/output options like TalkBack, Braille typing, and TTS.
Learning curve for screenreaders - young children pick up faster than adults who lost eyesight in between.
Secondary Research
For Secondary Research, we studied apps used by Hearing Impaired (HI) and Visually Impaired (VI) people and kids to understand their accessibility features.
We also explored educational and learning apps for kids that are accessible. This helped us identify best practices and useful features.
TAM - Total Addressable Market
Quantitative Data: Using the identified impairment rates, we applied them to the populations of Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, and rural areas to calculate the number of children aged 5-14 with hearing or visual impairments:
Tier 1 Cities: Approximately 5.2 lakh children.
Tier 2 Cities: Approximately 7.5 lakh children.
Tier 3 Cities: Approximately 22.7 lakh children.
Rural Areas: Approximately 61.3 lakh children.
All India Total - The estimated TAM for Chimple is XX.X Lakh Children aged 5-14 with hearing & visual impairments across all segments.
Solutioning
Conducted an accessibility audit to improve the app’s usability.
Designed an accessible onboarding flow and home screen aligned with WCAG standards.
Provided a development walkthrough for the Chimple team.
Developed two interactive games on Lido Player – one for Hearing Impaired (HI) kids and one for Visually Impaired (VI) kids.
Work Plan Discussion
Accessibitity audit
I conducted a detailed accessibility audit of the Chimple app on Android phone, evaluating it against WCAG guidelines.
This involved testing screen reader compatibility, color contrast, navigation, and interactive elements to identify and improve accessibility gaps.
Mobile or Tablet?
We decided to go with a tablet over a mobile for redesigning is for HI & VI kis because it works better for accessibility and learning.
Bigger Screen will give more space for large touch targets and easy navigation.
Haptic Feedback provides room for better touch gestures help kids navigate.
Less eye strain as tablet reduces the need to squint or bring the device too close, making learning more comfortable ( for low vision users ).
Can be held with both hands or placed on a stand, reducing accidental touches.
More space for clear layouts to help kids follow along without frustration.
Content for Lido Player
At first, we thought about designing a common content for both HI and VI kids to make the app more accessible. But we quickly realized that wouldn’t work because they use different senses to learn.
HI kids rely on visuals, while VI kids depend on sound and touch. A one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t be appropriate, so we designed different interactions that still lead to the same learning outcome.
I then worked with a special education teacher from Chimple to design game content for children with Visual Impairments (VI) and Hearing Impairments (HI).
A Hearing impaired kids can easily do a "match the following" activity since they rely on visuals, but that wouldn’t work for VI kids. Instead, they can listen to a question and tap the right answer. The idea was to keep learning fair and effective for both, just in ways that suit them best.
Design Hand-off Document
Designing was challenging since the organization did not have pre-existing Figma/XD files and relied on Adobe Illustrator. I created the entire user flow and components from scratch and handed them off to the developer.
I created Figma files for the accessible onboarding flow and home screen of the Chimple app, ensuring they followed WCAG guidelines. These files included detailed UI components, interaction designs, and annotations to guide the development team in implementing accessibility best practices.
Few onboarding screens
Final Developed Prototype (Onboarding)
While the development had limitations due to time constraints, the attempt to make it accessible was well-executed and recived with aplaude on the demo day.
Please turn on the Audio)
IPMF Final Demo Day
Behind the Scene
Additionally,
Apart from creating accessible app,
I Improved the organisation’s upstream design system with new components.
And mentored the team on accessibility design best practices.
Published this blog post to share insights from my IPMF Journey
Result
The onboarding flow and home screen of the Chimple app is now accessible, with the suggested improvements.
Since the games are complex, true accessibility requires both UX and game design refinements. The Chimple team has begun work in this direction.