Reading, revolutionized.
We helped Cascade launch a successful product offering to bring their innovative reading method out of the lab and into readers' hands.
In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics found that only 35% of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders were reading at grade level—indicating a downward trend in reading proficiency since 2019. Knowing more could be done to help students read better, a team of linguistic, technical, and business experts came together to develop a patented, research-backed, new reading method called Cascade Reading. At its core, Cascade is a text format that visually emphasizes linguistic relationships between words and phrases. These visual cues expose the core sentence structure that is usually buried in fields of block text, helping students comprehend more as they read. To get their innovative method out of the lab and into readers' hands, Cascade Reading partnered with Livefront to design and develop the product that would bring Cascade from concept to reality.
Our contributions
Vision & Strategy
- Product Strategy & Vision
- Concepting & Prototypes
- Design Sprints
Product Management
- Roadmapping
Product Design
- User Research
- Web Design
Development
- Algorithm
- API & Web Services
- Front End
Creating a digital linguist.
The manual process required for an expert linguist to correctly transform block text passages to Cascade Format is too labor-intensive to generate enough material to meet the needs of readers at scale. To bring the increased comprehension benefits of Cascade to all readers, while allowing them to read what really interests them, Cascade Reading would need the ability to transform any text into Cascade Format at the click of a button. Livefront conducted a successful research and development phase, creating a blueprint and various technical proof-of-concepts for a text conversion algorithm that could meet this need.
Turning the page on block text.
Livefront helped Cascade conduct their first large-scale research effort, where the impact of reading in Cascade Format during lessons was measured with 109 4th and 5th graders in a Milwaukee, WI public school. Using the working algorithm and a refined Cascade Format design, Livefront supported the automated preparation of the reading samples needed for the 13-week study. The results found that reading in Cascade Format, as opposed to standard block text, measurably improved reading accuracy and overall comprehension, providing further evidence of Cascade's potential to revolutionize the reading experience.
A plan to change reading.
With technical feasibility and pedagogical efficacy proven, Cascade Reading needed to identify a digital product offering that would expose users to reading in Cascade and set the stage for future commercial growth. We brought the Cascade team into the room with Livefront product strategists, product managers, and designers for a Product Strategy workshop. Through grounding, ideation, and down-selection, the team left with a product concept for Cascade Reading's initial release.
Pass along our thanks to the whole Livefront team—there is just so much power, and so much thought that has gone into the design and implementation.
Always ready for test day.
Knowing what you said is easy for voice assistants, but knowing what you meant is something else entirely. We leveraged first-party user research to understand what users wanted do with the skill, how they wanted to do it and, crucially, how Alexa might misinterpret their requests. Armed with that insight, we refined both Alexa's script and our backend services to anticipate misunderstandings and command collisions where they might happen and ensure that the experience handles those scenarios gracefully and intuitively.
A fairytale product for a nonfiction world.
Even with a groundbreaking methodology like Cascade, real-world constraints play a big role in the design and development process. Like most startups and businesses preparing for the launch of a new product, the team needed to stay flexible and continue pushing forward through every minor adjustment and significant pivot they would face along the way. To keep the team aligned and focused at each decision point, Livefront developed a set of core design principles that outlined the key goals for the Cascade product and its users.
Our own Cascade playground.
Samsung has teamed up with ADT, one of the most trusted names in home security, to make SmartThings-connected devices and ADT home security systems work together seamlessly. We helped manage the integration, working in tandem with ADT and its OEM hardware partners to get the (extraordinarily complex) job done.
A back end ready for the next chapter.
Following the blueprint created during our initial research and development phase, Livefront worked with Cascade to develop an algorithm and API ready for commercialization. With expert code reviews, consistent automated deployment, and rigorous automated regression testing, Livefront's software development methodology allowed the team to iterate quickly and efficiently. The resulting battle-tested algorithm and RESTful, easy-to-use, publicly-documented API made the Cascade team ready for public launch in Q3, and prepared for seamless 3rd-party integration in the future.
A tool for teachers & readers.
The user-facing embodiment of Cascade Reading, Cascade Explorer, is a tool for both educators and readers that layers interactive teaching functionality on top of a foundational reading experience. Features like highlighting, labeling, and pagination make up the flexible toolkit teachers can use to support their lessons, while a simplified reader view allows the tool to fade into the background while students focus on reading. The design of Explorer strips the novel Cascade methodology down to its basics, prioritizing accessibility and ensuring its functionality meets the real-world needs of a classroom environment.
Introducing Cascade Reading.
First impressions are critical, especially when a product is aiming to revolutionize an industry. To introduce Cascade Reading to the public and house the Cascade Explorer tool, Livefront created a thoughtfully-composed and beautifully-designed website. With engaging custom animations and illustrations, the website educates users on the Cascade Reading method while allowing them to try it out for themselves.
