tuan khanh
Finding the right school for your child is one of the most important decisions a parent can make. The school that your child attends will shape their education journey, impact their social and personal development, and set the foundation for their future. However, the process of finding a suitable school can be challenging and often times, stressful. With so many options available, it can be difficult for parents to determine which school will best meet their child's academic and personal needs. To make the right decision, parents must consider a variety of factors, including location, cost, academic programs, and extracurricular activities. In this introduction, we'll explore the challenges that many parents face when searching for a school for their child and the importance of finding a school that fits their child's unique needs.
Challenge
When developing OwlWiz, a school search app for parents, there are some challenges that I need to address and overcome:
- Ensuring a user-friendly and efficient because with so much information available about schools, it was important to design an app that made it easy for parents to find the information they needed and compare schools based on criteria that mattered to them.
- Ensuring the app's database are comprehensive and up-to-date. It was important to gather accurate and relevant information about each school, including academic programs, extracurricular activities, and student demographics. This required a significant amount of research and collaboration with schools and educational organizations.
- Ensuring the app are accessible to a wide range of parents, regardless of their technological expertise. It was important to design an app that was easy to use, even for those who are not tech-savvy. This required a user-centered design approach, with a focus on simplicity and intuitive navigation.
Goal
The main goal is to create an app that provide parents with an easy-to-use and efficient tool for finding a suitable school for their child. The app is designed to simplify the school search process, making it more manageable for busy parents. It aims to provide parents with the information they need to make informed decisions about their child's education.
target audience
The target audience are parents who are looking for a school for their child. The app is designed to meet the needs of busy parents who want to find a school that fits their child's academic and personal needs, without spending countless hours researching and visiting schools.
Solution
Developed an app with a deep understanding of the education systems and the schools to help parents navigate the school selection process easily. The app offer features such as filters for location, type of school, fees, facilities, curriculum, comparing schools, ratings and reviews of schools.
HOW MIGHT I
To generate ideas for how to solve the problems:
- How might I make it easier for parents to compare schools and find the best fit for their child?
- How might I provide parents with the information they need to make informed decisions about their child's education?
- How might we streamline the school search process for busy parents?
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Competitive Analysis
I've conducted a competitor analysis on five websites including apps with a similar aspect of product offerings. I focused on key features and how the process is for finding a school, what ratings they provide, and what classes the school offers.
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USER RESEARCH
I conducted interviews with parents who have or is searching for a school to understand their user journey, user needs and pain points that they run into when searching for a school. I wanted to create an app that can solve their pain points and making the process more enjoyable while maintaining substantial information in order for parents to make the final decision.
PAIN POINTS
Parents can face a range of frustrations in their school search, which can be challenging and stressful. With OwlWiz, it can help address these pain points by providing a comprehensive database of schools, a comparison tool, and on going support to help parents make informed decisions about their child's education.
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
To further understand of the pain points of parents, I grouped and categorized all the data into an affinity map to help me understand the user experience and gain insights on the pain points that users might encounter when searching for a school a step further.
FEATURE PRIORITIZING
After gaining insights on the pain points of the user, I created a feature prioritization. Going back to the competitive analysis, I wanted to include features that would benefit the users. Features that would help users find schools effectively, and how contents and information will help them better decide on a school that is suitable for their kids.
INSIGHTS TO OPPORTUNITIES & FEATURES
After gathering insights from the interviewers, I identified the areas of opportunity to help parents search a suitable school for their children more easily and effectively.
IDEATION
With the insights gathered, I brainstormed some potential design solutions:
Mobile App
- Comprehensive school database
- School comparison
- Interactive maps
- Parent reviews and ratings
- School touring
- Personalized school recommendations
- Resources and support
USER FLOW
I then created a user flow in which users start the process of onboarding to researching and finding information about statistics and ratings of a school, and eventually reaching a decision to enroll in a school.
FROM SCRIBBLES TO PROTOTYPEES
With the objectives in mind, I started prototyping from paper to digital mockups in Figma.
TESTING & ITERATIONS
After doing some usability testing with five users, participants were able to navigate through the onboarding, but needed a minor adjustments to have a fluid interaction between Sign in and Sign up screen.
ITERATIONS
Here are the minor adjustment that I made:
- Added a prompt to let users know that they can go back to the Sign in screen .
- I took out the sign in option for Google and Facebook, took make the design and process more clean.
TEST #1
Users were able to successfully navigate and search for schools that are in their area:
- User wanted to find schools in Colorado Springs area
- User can find different school options as well as resources
- User wanted to find the best public schools in Colorado Springs
- User wanted public schools, but have options to choose other type of schools
TEST #2
Users were able to successfully find different school options for their kids:
- User found different high school options
- User can add these schools to favorite list for later comparison
TEST #3
Users were able to successfully find substantial information about the selected schools:
- School info and overall ratings
- Overall academic ratings
- School website and contact information
- School rankings
- School diversity and safety ratings
- Teachers and student ratings
- School activities
- School reviews
- School on map to figure out the distance from home
TEST #4
Users were able to find the schools saved in the favorite list from the initial search for school in Colorado Springs, and were able to compare;
- User found two schools saved in the favorite list
- User found overall information about the school: Ratings, overall academics, overall safety and diversity, overall teachers and students, and overall school activities
- User can apply and within that the criteria needed to apply
DESIGN - STYLE GUIDE
I created a style guide with the theme of education, with the logo and each color representing a meaning gearing towards wisdom and success in education.
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DESIGN - HIGH FIDELITY
I conducted a last round of usability testing to gain feedbacks and determine if there needs to be any adjustments.
ONBOARDING
Users were pleased with the color theme and the onboarding process to be simple and straight forward.
RESEARCHING
With so many schools and educational information to take in, users find it pleasantly easy to navigate to search and research information that fits their criteria.
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UPDATED MAP
With an updated map, user find it more helpful in deciding which school best fit for travel time in their daily busy life.
COMPARING
Users like this feature of comparing different schools to get an overall definitive decision when choosing the best school for their children.
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FINALIZE
With the finalize product, users exhibit satisfaction, they can now have an app that helps them find a school for their children more easy and effectively, without having to go through the stress and complications of finding information from different sources.
CONCLUSION
OwlWiz is a game-changer for parents who are looking for a school for their child. With its comprehensive database and user-friendly interface, the app makes the school search process easier and more manageable. By providing parents with the information they need to make informed decisions about their child's education, OwlWiz is helping to shape the future of education and making a positive impact on the lives of children everywhere. By providing these key features, an app like OwlWiz can help parents find a suitable school for their children with ease and confidence. Parents can use the app to access all the information they need to make informed decisions about their child's education, and the app can support them through the entire process.
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