Atomic NYC

You can't make a great product without a stellar team behind you. Here's a closer look at the partners who made invaluable contributions to Starwriter, a digital handwriting and instruction app for young learners recognized by The Webby Awards. This app is based on the research of Dr. Nell K. Duke, who developed a brilliant system that teaches students to write letters with more legibility, efficiency, and automaticity. Starwriter models each letter, guides the child through the strokes, and provides feedback to help the child improve. From a product standpoint, we were guided by Tracy Mistry, an occupational therapist. Tracy deeply understood how young learners would react to different elements of Starwriter's interface. She also provided great insight into the tactical skills of young children, including how they hold a pencil or stylus. In order to design and build Starwriter, we also needed a tight relationship with our development partners at Atomic NYC, who were instrumental in our overall design process and helped to ensure that Nell's instruction was effectively translated into a digital product. Here's what our partners have to say about the project in their own words: Dr. Nell K. Duke, University of Michigan, Great First Eight "Backpack Interactive is amazing to work with! They have a multidimensional team with expertise in graphic design, user experience, classroom context, child development, and the affordances of specific technologies. They listen to vision and feedback and liaise effectively with developers. We are so appreciative of Backpack’s role in our work!" Tracy Mistry, Occupational Therapist "Working with Backpack Interactive on the Starwriter app has been a fantastic experience. They brought creativity, organization and a consistently positive attitude to the team as they captured our vision for Starwriter in engaging, education-focused designs. Adam Young, Atomic NYC From day one on the Starwriter project, we worked together as an incredible, multi-talented team: Dr. Nell Duke was clear about the goals for learners, Backpack translated that into an effective digital experience, and Atomic prototyped options for how to achieve it. Starting from a greenfield of options, the combined team set priorities, iterated quickly, tested hypotheses, and proved out technical solutions to deliver for users. Together, we delivered an amazing MVP to NYC classrooms in 3 months and then continued to grow and evolve over the school year." Congratulations to Magpie Literacy, Dr. Duke, Tracy, and Atomic for their incredible work! We couldn't ask for better partners than you.