EDUblue Casestudy
A solo end-to-end project, from conception and research to final prototyping and testing, for an A.I. powered productivity app created specifically for teachers.
Project Type
End to End App
Role
Solo Project: Research, Branding, UX/UI Design, Testing
Time Frame
Approximately 100 Hours
Introduction
Background
As of 2022, approximately 2.5% of the working population of the United States – over four million people – are employed as teachers. For nearly a decade, I was one of those millions. Drawing on my experiences in the industry, I was interested in developing an End-to-End Application to assist teachers with their administrative, organizational and planning tasks.
Education is a critical element of society, but it's also a sector filled with opportunities. Nearly 75% of teachers believe technology improves teaching and learning outcomes, and in 2020, Edtech companies raised nearly $1.78 billion in venture capital investments (Gitnux/Statista). How can I leverage emerging technology to fill a niche in this field?
The Problem
As almost anyone in the industry will tell you, teaching comes with an array of challenges. In Georgia, my home state, approximately 44% of new teachers leave the industry before year five, and the overall teacher turnover rate from year to year is 16% (GADOE). Over 75% of states are facing teacher shortages, despite the fact that demand for teachers continues to increase.
Why do teachers leave the profession? Research indicates that “nearly three-fourths of teachers and 85 percent of principals are experiencing frequent job-related stress, compared to just a third of working adults” (EducationWeek). Teachers often cite limited instructional time, staff shortages, and too many additional hours as sources of their stress. Many apps for student/parent communication exist, but few focus solely on the needs of teachers. Therefore, I'm interested in using A.I. technology to develop tools would save time, reduce stress, and allow teachers to devote more time to their students.
Project Goals
Identify and understand user needs. What types of tasks do teachers struggle to complete, and what tools would help?
Develop a user-friendly UI that allows teachers to access these tools easily and for a variety of purposes
Create branding and high-fidelity mockups to demonstrate a variety of typical user flows employing these tools.
This application needed to be completed within a 100-hour time frame from conception and preliminary research to design and testing. I had limited access to people within the profession, so I utilized a variety of research methods to assure it met the needs of real teachers. The scope of the project was limited to essential features to assure quality within the given constraints.
In order to determine what features would be most useful to teachers, I considered these basic questions:
What organizational, planning, and administrative tasks do teachers have during a routine day/week of work?
What are the most significant sources of stress for teachers?
What tools currently exist to help teachers manage their organization, planning, and administrative tasks?
How can A.I. technology be used to streamline these tasks?
Research Strategies
Secondary Research to explore the existing research regarding teacher experiences, needs, and pain points.
Competitive Analysis to examine what other teacher-focused apps choose to feature and how they integrate A.I.
Interviews & Surveys to understand the needs and preferences of likely users: teachers in all levels of education.
Key Takeaways
73% of teachers reported using technology makes the teaching and learning process easier. 58% of teachers have an improved outlook on technology in the classroom since COVID-19
Over 75% of survey responders teach at least five classes each day.
Most research participants (72.4%) planned for two or three different lessons each day.
The majority of survey participants reported that their school/department often accepted, encouraged, or demanded they complete work outside of their contracted hours.
Respondents reported feeling most negatively about meetings, and most positively about helping struggling students. Participants were split on their feelings toward planning lessons.
Participants reported various requirements for submitting written lesson plans. The majority of responders wrote their plans individually or collaboratively (with other teachers in their department). Very few were given plans.
While many reported having to submit their lesson plans to an administrative figure in their school, few were required to send their plans to students/parents. All participants were able to reuse some or all of their lesson plans from year to year.
Teachers reported overall positive feelings about using A.I. in the classroom
Analyzing Research Data
As I pulled important quotes from interviews, surveys, and other research, I used the popular method of Affinity Mapping to visualize the data. For example, here are sorted responses related to planning: time for planning, lesson plans, and unit planning.
I also considered the survey data to understand common teacher needs that tended to be more quantitative. For example, 72.4% of my survey participants teach 2 or 3 different subjects per day.
Meet Our Teachers: User Personas
Using the information and opinions expressed throughout my surveys, interviews, and associated research, I developed two distinct teacher personas: Carrie, a new teacher, and Arjun, an experienced teacher in a leadership position. They incorporate many popular opinions and needs of a likely user, based on research.
With a better grasp of teacher pain points, it's time to consider some solutions.
Defining the Big Questions…
I’d like to help new or inexperienced teachers find and develop instructional resources to improve their teaching and support student success.
How might we use A.I. to develop lessons and activities for new or inexperienced teachers while assuring that the material is high-quality, appropriate, and effective?
How might we use A.I. to help teachers plan long- and short-term curriculums that support student success and various types of learners?
I’d like to help overburdened teachers streamline their documentation and communication to save time during school days.
How might we use A.I. to develop the instructional documentation required by many schools while assuring that the materials meet state and national standards?
How might we use A.I. to assist teachers in communicating with parents more effectively while reducing the administrative burden on teachers?
…and the Main Features
Proposing solutions to these questions, I determined the following key features for the app:
But what does that look like, exactly?
As I drafted the first version of the site map, I considered what information and tools users would want to see immediately upon opening the app. First and foremost: the current week's plans and materials, for teachers like Carrie who need to organize entire classes and units. For users who may just want to create materials, the bottom navigation will always include a link to the content generator.
And how would it work?
In order to assure that users like Arjun or Carrie would be able to navigate the app, I drafted User Flows to illustrate their likely steps as they complete basic tasks.
Branding Development
Throughout this project, I continually refined the branding, setting a basic philosophy.
Name & Logo Development
The name of the app, EDUblue, was an iteration of an earlier name, BluePlan. I wanted the app's name to be easily identified as one relating to education, but Education BluePlan was too long. Ultimately, it became EDUblue for the rhyme and simplicity.
The Bauhaus-inspired shapes allow for color and playfulness, while maintaining professionalism and simplicity.
Styling
The first draft of the styling identified several bright accent colors, along with blue as the primary brand color: a nod, of course, to the name of the app. I tried several different typeface options, ultimately settling on Lato because it is clean, modern, and very readable on small screens. Below, you'll see the final version of several UI elements.
As I developed the UI and branding, I created several different wireframe iterations, progressively refining both the appearance and functional elements.
Preliminary Testing
Between the mid and high-fidelity wireframes, I did some simple testing related to the navigation, calendar feature, colors, and search filtering.
The feedback on the calendar was especially helpful, as users seem to have diverse preferences when it comes to these features. By a narrow margin, my participants preferred to not have icons on the calendar; therefore, for my high fidelity wireframes, I removed them. However, I’m also aware that a completely empty calendar may be confusing for the user if they haven’t added plans yet. Therefore, I will keep the small blue plus icon on days without plans.
I found during testing that having a bottom navigation and top menu left users wondering where to go to quickly find their main tools. In the revised navigation, the top menu's main account pages are mostly integrated into the bottom menu, and all the links to Material Generator pages are found under the plus button. These changes significantly improved user feedback.
In order to test my latest iteration of the design, I put together a Figma prototype with the ability to:
Log In
Find and view the Lesson Plan
Generate a Lesson Plan
Include Materials and Assessments
Modify plan to also include Differentiation By Ability Level and Extension Activities
Create an Activity and save it to the appropriate day
Create parent Communication for the current unit and save it
Search My Materials and filter by Lesson Plans
User Testing Results
User testing involved moderated and unmoderated Prototype testing on the Lyssna platform. Participants were asked to complete the tasks outlined in user flows and give general feedback on their experience.
GOAL: Assure that users are able to complete basic tasks on the prototype.
5 tasks were completed by 100% of users
2 tasks were completed by 80% of users
GOAL: Determine the overall efficiency of prototypes: for example, whether or not users are able to complete tasks with ease, within a reasonable timeframe, and without excessive errors.
Users spent, on average, between 20 and 90 seconds on each task.
Two tasks had >20% misclicks, while the rest where between 3% and 14%
GOAL: Assess user satisfaction with the overall process of performing the tasks.
Users reported high satisfaction with the design of the site.
One task (creating an activity) was moderately challenging for participants. The rest were "easy" or "very easy."
Suggested Changes Based on Testing
Incorporate a back button on Daily Lesson pages
Include a back button on Editing pages, with a modal warning they have unsaved changes
Add text on generator pages when material has been created: for example, “Here’s a plan for Chapter 6 of The Great Gatsby…”
Restructure the update/save buttons on generator pages
Revise the attached document section on Lesson Plan page
Next Steps
The next steps in this project would involve building out the onboarding flow and developing a brief tutorial to explain the general navigation of the app for new users, emphasizing the Plus Button as their hub to create all types of materials. Additionally, new categories of items can be easily added to this menu.
I would also be interested in revisiting the design of the main profile page to develop and test alternatives that might work better for teachers who have to plan 4+ different classes a day.
Finally, I'd like to explore designing a desktop version of the app, since many teachers may prefer to complete these tasks on a computer.
Reflection
This project was one I was quite passionate about, and ultimately, I'm proud of what I created. It was challenging — most notably the sheer amount of information each mobile screen had to accommodate and the difficulties of testing for a specific population of users.
I also went through more iterations on this project than any previous one, but I felt each one was essential to arrive at the final version. It was a winding journey, but ultimately a successful one. By the end, I felt confident that even the least experienced or the most technology-resistant veteran teacher could successfully use this application.
