Better School Choice

School search

Design a product for finding the right school

Client requested a product to help parents of K-12 aged children search for a nurturing and academically strong school by:

• Identifying the needs of parents

• Hypothesizing solutions

• Developing and prioritizing features that aid towards user goal.

• Creating a product that is effective, competitive and marketable.

Empowering tools

Effective tools that lead to solutions

Using research and analysis, goal was to imagine features that help parents research, compare and evaluate schools to match the child’s needs. The design needed to be effective, marketable and pass usability testing.

Research & design

A multi-hat role in UX, UI and research

• Research, analysis and synthesis of data,

• Planning the appropriate experience and flow,

• Designing a visually attractive product.

Parents

Passionate and dedicated parents of children K-12.

• Parents of at least one child ages 5-18.

• A mid-high income.

• Searching for “The” school through research, first-hand interviews and a positive “gut reaction”.

By listening to parent interviews, I discovered commonalities such as the influences on their decisions, pain points experienced, tasks performed, their emotions and goals. Specifically, parents need more resources and direct communication with schools to identify the correct environment for their child.

I hypothesized that by creating features that allow a parent to search, analyze school data, read resources, see the school in perspective to others in the state, and directly communicate with staff, alumni or other parents, I would provide an effective product and creative product solution for the users and stakeholders.

Need for supportive and nurturing environment.

Resources for learning about different schools.

Communication with staff or alumni.

Need for proximity and budget that fit.

Small class size

Demographic and economic diversity of students based on merit.

Curriculum that features:

• Teaching approach aligning to parent’s philosophy.

• Strong academics, variety of facilities.

• Support excellence and progress in a variety of skill sets.

Teaching approach that adjusts to chid’s evolving needs.

Concern with current system and nervousness towards finding the right solution.

Curiosity for alternative options and confidence in their intuition.

Strengths:

• Articles and resources.

• Best-in school categories by state.

• Focus on schools, no divergents.

• Detailed statistics.

Weaknesses:

• Academic details limited to Math
  and English.

• Poorly designed UX and UI

• Lack of search by zip code.

• No reviews by parents or alumni.

Research school options.

Narrow down a list of schools based off of performance and environment.

Make a list of core features I want in a school.

Go on school tour, speak to school representatives.

Apply child to school of choice.

Follow-up with staff on adjustment and progress of child.

School search feature by zip code with filters.

Environment of school by student to teacher ratio and facilities.

School grade by product’s evaluation metrics.

Chat with faculty

Detailed statistics with clear and easy visualization of data.

Resource portal with articles and worksheets.

Book a school tour.

Social Hub for communication for staff, parents or alumni.

Statistics on school demographics.

Best-in category comparison by state to provide performance.

Academic strength based on Math, English, Arts and Science including indicators of state averages.

The new product had powerful tools to help parents search schools for best fit using:

• Filtered search

• Analysis of school performance

• Comparison of school within perspective of the state

• Resource articles for parents

• Communication hub
  for alumni, staff and other parents

• Direct parent-to teacher chat

However, the usability test was partially successful:

• User could complete the task, but...

• Trouble with the navigation

• User felt intimidated chatting directly to the staff.

I adapted to the user’s feedback:

• Enhancing the user experience
  

• Clarifying my navigation labels

• Crafting a flow that was more natural and logical.

• Providing the right tools at the right time.

As a result, the product’s features empowered parents with information and first-hand interviews of the school staff and had a marketable, competitive advantage.

Learnings:
Overcoming task flow challenges by clarifying navigation and guiding the user through a natural and logical experience,

allowed me to incorporate the chat feature I had envisioned to be both empowering to users and marketable. This insight will guide me through the next sprints.

The next steps:

• Test the prototype again with the users

• Create additional prototypes of features and flows.