Guiding Yukon youth through secondary school with an interactive, story-driven digital experience

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Two mobile screens displaying scenes from the Grad Planner app, showing illustrated Yukon youth characters in a forest setting as part of an interactive storytelling experience.

Challenge

YFNED's Grad Planner held genuinely useful guidance for students, and almost nobody was opening it. As a printed booklet and PDF, it asked teenagers to read a document the way you'd read a tax form. Uptake was low, and no wonder. The planner needed to meet youth where they actually are, respect the cultural diversity of First Nations communities across the Yukon, and do it all on a real-world budget.

Concept sketches of Yukon youth characters exploring clothing, poses, and expressions during early development of the Grad Planner app.

Solution

We turned the planner into a choose-your-own-adventure journey that follows two Yukon youth through secondary school and the many pathways that open up after it. JavaScript-controlled video playback lets students steer the story, custom 3D character animation built in Blender gives it life, and contextual pop-ups keep the practical planning content close at hand. First Nations artists led the illustration and voiceover, so the whole experience sounds and feels like home. Rebuilt on Astro with Keystatic, the content is now easy for the YFNED team to keep fresh as pathways change.

Illustrated character turnaround showing a Yukon youth from multiple angles, created for the Grad Planner app to support character animation and interactive storytelling.

Results

The reimagined planner is live and already drawing students in, with 73 users exploring the experience in its early weeks. Just as important for a tool built for every learner, it meets top accessibility standards so every student can take part, and it loads quickly and cleanly. And with Keystatic behind it, updating a pathway or a piece of guidance no longer means a developer and a wait, it means a few minutes and a save.

Illustrated scene showing two Yukon youth standing on a forest path, with the environment transitioning from a monochrome render on one side to a full-colour landscape on the other.

Composite image showing multiple mobile screens from the Grad Planner app, including illustrated storytelling scenes, reflective text prompts, and informational panels that support students navigating secondary school pathways.