Brennan Hidde's Portfolio

Vooks Creator

Vooks Creator is a kid-friendly storytelling app designed to help children make their own books through drawing, stickers, text, narration, and page-by-page story creation. I helped shape the product vision, early concepting, UX/UI direction, feature planning, testing, and launch strategy.

My Contributions

Complete Concept to Launch Ownership | Feature Branding | Product Design | Product Management | Product Strategy

<— Pssst…It's free to use!

⭐

4.8 App Store Rating

200+ global App Store ratings
(and counting)

🏆

Award Winning

Recipient of two industry design awards

🤝

Built With Families

14 interviews and 100+ survey responses

🍎

Opened New Opportunities

Created strategic conversations with Apple and IBM

About The Project

Vooks Creator began with an idea: what if kids could move from watching stories to making their own?

The goal was to create a playful, intuitive, and confidence-building creative tool that allowed children to draw, build scenes, add words, record narration, and present finished stories.

My work included product strategy, feature definition, UX/UI direction, creative direction, usability testing, and cross-functional leadership. I helped translate the early vision into a real product experience, balancing creative freedom with usability for young children.

If you are looking for an interactive app for kids, look here👇

This is a great app. It is age appropriate, interactive, and so much fun! You can create your own story, share it with friends or family, and read them on your own, or with the help of an adult. I could not even get off this app when I needed to go to the restroom!!! The sky is the limit when you have Vooks Creator!

App Store Review (kid user)

What Guided The Work

From story consumers to story makers
One of the goals behind Creator was helping kids move from passive consumers of stories to active participants in storytelling. Rather than only watching, reading, or listening, Creator gives children a place to imagine, experiment, and bring their own ideas to life.

Making creativity accessible
Creator was intentionally designed to be approachable for children. The goal wasn't to provide every possible creative tool, but to create an experience where kids could jump in quickly, experiment freely, and feel successful bringing their ideas to life.

Creating value for kids and the business
Creator was built around the belief that giving kids a meaningful new way to engage with stories could also make Vooks more valuable to families. By expanding the product from watching stories to making them, we saw an opportunity to deepen engagement and give families another reason to keep Vooks as part of their lives.

+14.3 pts

First-Month Retention Lift

Creator users were more likely to remain subscribers.

+5.7 pts

Higher Trial Conversion

Trial users who created a story converted at a higher rate.

It Started With An Early Vision

Before investing months of engineering effort, we first needed a compelling vision worth pursuing. This very early concept deck I created helped communicate the opportunity, spark alignment, and ultimately earn the confidence to build the first prototype. The project changed quite a lot as we went along, but it never would have happened if the concept and vision weren't strong enough to trigger a green light from leadership.

Testing & Feedback Drove Development

Rather than committing to a large product investment upfront, we intentionally validated the opportunity at every stage. Early concepts led to prototypes, prototypes led to an unlisted beta, and each phase of testing helped determine whether the project deserved additional investment. Just as importantly, customer feedback shaped what we built next, ensuring priorities were driven by real users.

Beautiful App and a great concept!!

This app is beautiful!! 🤩. The backgrounds, stickers and music are all very tasteful and the concept is great! Very entertaining and engaging for kids!!! Easy to use for anyone!

App Store Review

5 stars!

This app makes my imagination come true, all the storylines in my head became a digital book! I love this! Its so cool and it has cool features!

App Store Review (kid user)

Helping Kids Get Started

Early testing and customer interviews showed us that some kids needed a little help understanding what they could make with Creator and how to get started. In response, we created a playful onboarding video to introduce the experience, explain the core tools, and help kids jump into making their first story.

Expanding the Creative Palette:
Sticker Maker Tool

Feedback also showed us that kids wanted even more freedom to bring their own ideas into Creator. The Sticker Maker was a post-launch addition that allowed kids to draw, save, and reuse their own stickers—expanding the creative palette without adding unnecessary complexity to the core experience.

Growing The Vooks Universe

In addition to building based on customer feedback, I also looked for opportunities to make Creator feel more distinctive, playful, and uniquely Vooks. One of those opportunities was introducing an original cast of characters designed specifically for Creator.

Rather than creating a collection of unrelated stickers, I worked closely with illustrator Ivan Mesaros to develop three distinct characters, each with their own personality, relationships, and emotional range. I provided creative direction throughout the process, from early feedback and character selection to color, expressions, and scene ideas.

Defining each character's personality helped guide the 100+ illustrations, creating a sticker set that felt playful, cohesive, and very on brand for Vooks.