CLIENT
Education Excellence
ROLE
UX UI Designer
End-to-end delivery
INDUSTRY
Private and independent secondary education
PROJECT DURATION
6 weeks design sprint with Academy Xi
BACKGROUND
Education Excellence is a start-up company looking to provide a way for private high schools to retain students in year 10, and to deliver the year 10 experience the way it should be, rather than based on the limited resources schools have.
The end result could enable schools to deliver a year 10 program focussed on subject choice and exposure, and also
offer a unique program to attract students to a school.
PLANNING AND RESEARCH
Understanding the problem space
Project Scope
Problem statement
Research Approach
My role on this project was a UX UI Designer in a team of twelve. We had our initial client meeting to discuss the project scope and which included the project goals, target audience, assumptions, constraints, and deliverables. We presented this back to the client in week two to ensure everyone was on the same page.
PROJECT GOAL
To create a platform that provides students and schools the opportunities to offer and engage with a broad variety of learning experiences at the Year 10 curriculum level.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Students are frustrated by a lack of personalised study options and want to expand their horizons, however they feel hindered by the sometimes limited school curriculum and the constraints of the current education system.
RESEARCH APPROACH
We were split into five smaller teams to conduct different types of research. The research approaches we chose included:
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Competitor Analysis
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Desktop Research
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Online Surveys
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1:1 Interviews
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User Testing
I was responsible for leading the competitor analysis team. The client gave us a list of competitors and I divided the work among our team to complete the research. We came together as a team to debrief before presenting the findings to our client.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Synthesise our research to generate insights to uncover what problem we are trying to solve
Competitor Analysis
1:1 Interviews
Online Surveys
Affinity Map
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
We identified nine competitors; six online schools and three universities. The competitor analysis looked at areas such as
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Funding/Investors
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Subjects offered
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Service provision
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Value proposition
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Current website or mobile app
Due to the client's confidentiality, I have not included the insights here.
1:1 INTERVIEWS
My role was to interview some of the students and parents. Then synthesise the information in an affinity map. As a team, we created three separate affinity maps for each user type.
Student Participants
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6 students
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80% of the participants were female and 20% were male.
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Participants were aged between 16 to 18 years old.
Key insights
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Students place a high value on the social interaction associated with face-to-face learning
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Online learning environments are less desirable for students due to:
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Reduced social interaction
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Lack of motivation
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Some students can be too "shy" to contribute
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Require a high level of self-discipline and time management
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Students have mixed views on their school's current work experience programs.
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Viewed as more of a "nice to have".
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Provides a good opportunity to get a brief glimpse of the workforce.
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However, it can impede upon studies in the midst of competing priorities like assignments and assessments.
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Work experience: Students would likely choose practical work experience in their related career goal but doesn't consume too much of their time
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“We didn't have an accounting teacher so we had to zoom into the accounting class from City campus. The teacher had to teach two classes at the same time. I had her for like 10 minutes of her lesson. I pretty much just learnt it myself. That was a struggle.”
Owen C (17) Year 12 student at Haileybury College
"Looking back I would have chosen subjects that helped with a future career"
Payton, (18) Barker College Sydney
Parent Participants
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5 Parents
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80% of the participants were female and 20% were male.
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Participants were aged between 45 to 61 years old.
Key insights
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Location is an important factor when parents are considering schools & subject choices.
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Parents believe that the greater the investment in their child's education, the greater the opportunities should be available to their child.
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The success of online learning is intrinsically linked to the motivation of the child and the quality of delivery.
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Practical skillset offerings are important to parents of Year 10 students.
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Parents are active in their child's Year 10 subject selection.
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It's important for parents that students are doing subjects they have a genuine interest in.
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Parents are frustrated by the school's limited subject choices.
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Parents in smaller schools believe that the curriculum and electives offered in Year 10, do not meet each child's learning needs.
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Parents believe that Atar should not be the most important factor in subject choice.
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4 out of 5 parents had moved their students to a different school
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Parents are prepared to move their child to a different school for them to be able to study subjects that they want to.
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Parents view study options such as uni, TAFE, and vet courses as a possibility
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Parents believe that the current Year 10 curriculum needs to be revamped.
"It was like a big fail that she couldn't do these basic subjects and she couldn't access them [music and drama classes].
So it’s quite upsetting because we pay a lot of money a private school."
Claire H, 53, Mother of four, daughter in Year 10
Teacher Participants
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5 Teachers
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60% of the participants were female and 40% were male.
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Participants were aged between 28 to 58 years old.
Key insights
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Factors considered in subject offerings are:
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Interest
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Timetabling
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Available Teachers
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Resources
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Schools struggle to find specialist teachers to offer a wide range of personalized study options and can there only offer a certain amount of subject variety
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Schools try their best to improve and enable students to engage in a variety of subjects/ activities during school and outside of school
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Subjects involving technical skills are best-delivered face-to-face.
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Schools see other schools as direct competitors, and this can make collaboration somewhat problematic.
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Schools are questioning the value of the work experience program based on its current form. This may need revising to adapt to the current workforce climate.
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Particular electives are more popular at certain schools.
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Schools will benefit from innovative approaches to deliver the year 10 curriculum.
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It's important for schools to offer experiences that give year 10 students the opportunity to develop "learning to learn" skills
“To open one class, it depends on the level because it's a resourcing reason.
You need to have in some cases specialist teachers to run the class particularly in secondary.
Then you need to have rooms and potentially specialist rooms depending on the subject.
So student choice, teacher expertise, the funding, the amount of students in the class, and space."
Dr. Amanda, VIC, past principal
ONLINE SURVEY
Gender
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Overwhelmingly female Students - 83.3% Parents - 88.9%
Age
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Students - years 10, 11 & 12
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Parents - 66.7% aged between 40 -50, remainder 50-60
Location
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Students - NSW 42.9% Vic - 57.1%
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Parents - NSW 73.7% Vic - 15.8%, QLD - 10.5%
Key Insights
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Almost half of students changed schools due to social reasons.
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However, parents said that subject selection was the biggest factor.
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Parents are willing to move schools if subjects offerings aren't right.
For further details and insights from the online survey, please click to see the data here.
Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data enabled the team to identify several high-level themes which applied directly to all three user groups. It took considerable time to synthesise the data for each user group and then synthesise the user group data as a whole.
The several identified themes included:
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Purpose of Year 9 & 10
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Learning environments
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Practical skillsets/ industry experiences
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Competitors Vs. collaboration and
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Subject offerings
DEFINE AND IDEATE
Explore effective solutions using an iterative approach
Archetypes
Customer Journey Map
Ideation
ARCHETYPES
Based on our research we defined three archetypes for Education Excellence. To understand each user group, we created a student, parent, and education staff archetype rather than personas, as the goals, needs, and frustrations were not necessarily dependent upon user group demographics. Prior to creating the archetypes, we used the 'jobs to be done' framework to assist us in unpacking and gaining clarity regarding the realities students, parents, and education staff face when selecting and deciding upon Year 10 subjects for the following year.
Take a look at the artifacts below.
From here, we built our solution around the student archetype, as students made up the primary user group. We mapped out the student journey map to represent how students decide on their Year 10 subject selection under four phases 'prepare, submit, revise and finalise.' We were able to identify several opportunities to guide our ideation session and create the final solution.
IDEATION SESSION
During our ideation session, we worked as a team to brainstorm solutions based on our research insights. Then we created a minimum viable product (MVP) to identify solutions to prioritise.
The team came together and completed two activities, the worst possible idea, and a newspaper article. The worst possible idea involved the team coming up with the craziest or worst idea possible and then flipping it to the opposite. The second activity involved writing a headline for a news article and a story to convey our ideas for the project. We also came up with a storyboard to present some of our key ideas.
From our ideation session, we then crafted a 'How might we?' statement to refine the problem statement.
How might we support schools to allow students the opportunity to explore future study and career paths or build life skills by experiencing a variety of subjects in Year 10?
As a team, we decided to design a desktop solution as all students will use a laptop or computer to complete their online courses. This then helped us think through the information architecture, user flow, and interactive prototypes for testing.
DELIVER
We build and test our solutions
Card Sorting
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Wireframes
Lo to Hi-fi prototypes
Usability testing
CARD SORTING
We started with brainstorming content/information that was needed for card sorting. This helped structure the information architecture and user flow. The card sorting was conducted virtually via 'Optimal Workshop' and was completed with student users.
WIREFRAMES
We then created a low-fidelity wireframes of the website and student portal in Figma.
USER TESTING
As a team, we set out goals and created a user testing guide. As this was a new UI, the purpose of the user testing centered around the goals below.
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To understand how users from our archetypes react to the Education Excellence prototypes, as well as to test the viability of the solution.
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To confirm whether our model will alleviate the frustrations formed by the outdated and restrictive subject offerings provided by most schools to year 9 and year 10 students through alternative academic and practical micro courses
My role was to also complete user testing on student participants.
Participants
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5 students, 60% of the participants were female and 40% were male.
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3 Parents, 100% of the participants were female.
Testing insights
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Students felt mostly comfortable with navigating through the prototype. The website was viewed as professional and trustworthy. Parents were a bit more cautious and critical with their testing outcomes. Parents were more attentive to the product, but also had minor difficulties navigating the website compared to students.
There were many iterations carried out as a result of the user testing. Some of the more significant changes included:
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Moving the course guides to ensure they were located with the corresponding course in the subject library. The initial course guide wireframe read more like a learning style blog, so this wireframe became a support blog, and the course guide moved.
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The course library required changes to the filters to avoid secondary and tertiary menus on the one interface) and changes to buttons that led users to additional/ further information before enrolling.
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The about us section was wiped and moved to the home page. Many users felt that the information on the about us page was better placed on the home page to build trust and credibility. As the start-up grew, an about us page, including the story behind the start-up, the team, etc could be added.
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Some language was inconsistent across the UI - changes were made to avoid user confusion.
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Several changes were made to the student portal, primarily concerned with the layout of enrolled courses/ lessons.
Overall we received very positive feedback from the two user groups tested (students & parents). One student reported
"This is the best learning website for Year 10 students that I've seen. I don't usually want to learn online or remotely, but I would if I was doing it from a platform like this."
Shakira, current Year 10 student.
DESKTOP PROTOTYPE
As a team, we refined the design concept and my role was to design the mid-hi fidelity prototype for the 'Community' page on the website. A design system was created so that everyone was consistent with fonts, colours, and styles. After the user testing and feedback, our team made changes and finalised the prototype for presentation to the client.
Please see the final desktop prototype below.
Future recommendations
Timetabling
Create a timetable system for students so that they can select their preferred subjects and align them with their current school curriculum.
Students and subscribers
Establish supplier relationships with private and regional schools.
Educator Portal
Design a portal for educators to connect with students.
Partnerships
Explore partnerships with providers such as universities and various industries.