Tap App
NSW Department of Communities and Justice
A private app supporting therapeutic group programs for people recently released from prison — designed by Stripy Sock, in partnership with TeleResult, to feel welcoming and supportive for an audience that institutional design could easily push away.
Outcomes
- A purpose-built visual identity for a sensitive audience, extended beyond the app into program materials
- A complete system: native iOS and Android apps, a public web app, an administrative web app and a secure backend
- Delivered iteratively in partnership with TeleResult, with regular releases so participants' and facilitators' needs shaped the product
Tap App supports people rebuilding their lives after prison. Developed for the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, it’s a private companion to therapeutic group programs for people recently released — which meant it had one job above all others: to feel safe, friendly and worth opening.
What it does
- A welcoming companion to therapeutic group programs, designed around the people attending them and the facilitators running them.
- A calm, supportive space — deliberately unlike the institutional systems its users have had enough of.
- The right tool for each person — participants use the mobile apps and website, facilitators and administrators use dedicated web tools, all backed by a secure managed environment.
Behind the app
The most important work on Tap App happened before much code was written. Through an intensive workshop process around an early prototype, we worked to understand both the people attending the programs and the facilitators delivering them — and how language, tone, navigation, colour and branding would land with an audience for whom the wrong note could feel confronting.
Colour turned out to matter enormously. Greens carried associations with prison clothing; the blue, white and red of familiar government branding could evoke police and corrections. So we developed a visual identity for Tap App that felt calm, approachable and deliberately distinct from those institutions — and designed it to work beyond the app, in the printed program materials participants hold in their hands.
Tap App was a genuine partnership: TeleResult led the project and provided infrastructure management, hosting and support, while Stripy Sock designed the interface and brand, developed the native iOS and Android apps, and shaped the infrastructure design. The system spans mobile apps, a public web app, an administrative web app and a secure backend, and it was released iteratively throughout the project so stakeholders could see it grow and steer it as it did.