Nervous Nelly

By Sassy Sloths:Caitlin Carr, Isabelle Jones, Isobel Rylance and Saoirse Gribbon

BackgroundOur App is aimed at young people aged between 11 and 16 who are finding secondary school life to be a struggle. Our app is to be used either in anticipation or after a tough school day. Are app Nervous

Nelly is to be used anywhere in which the app holder feels safe and comfortable in the surrounding environment.

We have created this app so that students feel safe and happy to express their feelings anonymously. App holders through using

Nervous Nelly will be able get help of fellow users without feeling embarrassed about their situation.

Core QuestionAre you feeling stressed , angry or alone at school, or is making friends not your strength?

Findings during Scoping

Maybe at school, home or and extra club you feel left out, angry or stressed etc. but you bottle up those feelings and don’t tell

anyone. So via nervous nelly anonymous people share advice and support so you can tell people but not directly.

Mini-Elevator pitch

Our team, team 12 , is developing a new mobile app, helping students aged 11-17 who are stressed or alone at school or in any situation to

share their feelings but without doing so face to face. We feel this would be beneficial to our target audience as our app removes any

awkward situations but still has the same beneficial properties.

Research

We asked a randomly selected 25 pupils at our school would they use our app. The 25 pupils mainly replied that they would use our

app, this is because 21 out of the 25 found year 7 and exams through the school year.

We also carried out a questionnaire to 10 people. We asked them ‘would you use our app?’ and ‘do you find our app appealing?’ Every questionnaire answered these questions as a yes. So we

know that there is a need of for our app and space for app on the market.

Research

Also, when looking at anti-bullying websites, we found out that 3.2 million students are victims of various bullying.

We also spoke to a professional who worked with developing apps for various devices, and he said that the app had good

potential, but to make it better, we could include a button for users to report bullying. We took this in to account and have

placed it on the app.

Market Research

We carried out our market research with Apple’s ‘App store’. We searched the key term of ‘bullying’ and saw what came up. There were

only 143 results this proves that there is definitely space on the market. Few of the 143 apps had no ratings so no one felt that there

was an app for their situation. Our proposed solution of nervous nelly is better as were as are the people who would use the app, we are the people who get those apps to number one on the charts and we know

how to get the word out.

MVP user story

Caitlin was always bullied at school and felt that she didn’t have anyone to turn to, especially teachers for fear of embarrassment. Caitlin had no friends to ask for advice, so she spoke to a fellow

Nervous Nelly user. Through the anonymous communication that Nervous Nelly has to offer, Caitlin was able to overcome her concerns.

Our MVP Feedback

When we showed our App to Caitlin she really loved the idea of Nervous Nelly. Caitlin thought it was very ‘simplistically

excellent’ and ‘a must for Troubled Teens’. Caitlin suggested that we incorporated a report bulling button on the app, and that maybe we don’t post all the replies immediately so they can be checked for inappropriate behaviour and bullying. We

took this advice on board as we believe it will help our app become even more user friendly.

Our Balsamic work

Marketing

Our marketing strategy is advertising throughout school’s that our team is connected to.

We will also advertise via social media by creating Instagram, Twitter and facebook accounts.

Technical Feasibility

We would need to create a forum we know this is technically feasible as we know that this had been done before in other apps.

We will need to create a report abuse/bullying button, this is also feasible as this has been used in many other social apps like Facebook

and YouTube.

We will also need to design suitable notification’s that are specific to that particular app user, we understand that this is feasible as apps

such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have incorporated this feature in their apps.

Business Case & Customer pledges

We have not yet chosen a Business model for our app however when we pitched our app to year 9 at Loreto Grammar School

120 students pledged to download and at least try our to give us their feedback. The replies from our pitch were very positive and many students said that they would download their app even if

they weren't being bullied just see what other people were going though. Anna Chadwick said “Year 7 for me was tough to

settle in and make friends but with an app like this I think year 7 would have been a whole lot easier!”