Designing Accessible Educational Apps in Collaboration with the Prince’s Trust
Supporting Young People Through Technology
The Prince’s Trust has long been a leading force in helping young people across the UK build confidence, develop skills, and find meaningful employment. When they needed digital tools to support young people enrolled in their digital skills programme, they partnered with Zen to co-create a pair of fully accessible mobile apps that could deliver education and guidance in an engaging, inclusive format.
This wasn’t just a design challenge; it was an opportunity to directly involve young people in the creative process, upskilling them along the way, and ensuring the final products met their real needs.
UX/UIWeb & App DevelopmentPersona buildingUser flow testing Scenario testingContent Creation
From the outset, the Trust made it clear that this would be a collaborative process. Zen was brought on not just to deliver the apps, but to engage young people in every step of development, from early concepting through to UX testing.
Key stages of the project included:
Designing two accessible mobile apps aligned with The Prince’s Trust’s brand and WCAG accessibility standards.Hosting digital skills workshops with young participants to introduce them to design processes, prototyping, and UX best practices.Running collaborative user testing with staff and young people, ensuring the apps served the needs of the very people they were built for.
Accessibility and ease of use were key design principles throughout. The apps needed to feel natural and intuitive to young users, many of whom were accessing them remotely via mobile. This meant clean UI, clear navigation, and responsive behaviour across all devices.
To help support the educational goals of the project, Zen integrated real-world learning opportunities for young participants throughout the development process.
We facilitated workshops that covered:
UX principles and user journey mappingWireframing tools and techniquesStakeholder interviews, including having young people conduct their own sessions to understand better how user feedback shapes development
This hands-on experience gave participants valuable exposure to the digital industry while ensuring they had a genuine voice in shaping the final product.
For testing, we built interactive prototypes and developed custom task-based testing flows using Lookback, a UX research tool that allowed us to monitor user responses and behaviours in real time. Testing sessions were conducted remotely (due to COVID-19 restrictions), but the feedback we gathered was rich, direct, and highly actionable.
Working closely with the Prince’s Trust and its participants, we successfully delivered two fully accessible, mobile-first educational apps that support young people as they develop vital skills.
Results included:
Improved accessibility through responsive design and user-focused layouts.Full alignment with Prince’s Trust brand standards while maintaining flexibility for future updates.Deeper engagement from users, thanks to co-created content and intuitive flows.Real educational value, not just from the apps themselves, but from the process of designing them.
Just as importantly, the project succeeded in its mission to give young people a meaningful say in how their digital tools are designed, while offering them real insight into how the creative and tech industries work. The end result was a project that empowered the next generation to lead, learn, and contribute.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Can't recommend Alan and his team at The Zen Agency highly enough. Extremely happy with both the look and functionality of our new website, and the associated digital marketing campaign. They have supported me through every step of the process with clear advice and a ‘can-do’ attitude."
Alison Lawson, Marketing Manager - Bell Ingram
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