Better School Choice

Parents can discover, compare, and connect with schools - all in one place.

| Overview

A platform designed to simplify school selection, helping parents discover, compare, and connect with K-12 schools to shape the best future for their children.

Deliverables

User research, empathy map, competitive analysis, information architecture, wireframes, usability reports, user flows, and hi-fi prototypes.

Role

UX/UI Designer

Timeline

May 2024 - Jul 2024

Industry

Education
You can navigate to each section from the side dropdown menu.

Problem

Working parents need an efficient platform to explore and connect with schools, allowing them to make well-informed decisions about their children's future.

Constraints

I focused only on the key main pages to address parents' school search process for their children of the website.

Goal

Design a solution that addresses parents' pain points when searching for schools and includes a unique feature that sets it apart in the market.

Impact

Parents of K-12 children can effortlessly find and visually compare schools that align with their criteria and their children's educational needs. They can also connect with school administrators for detailed inquiries and schedule tours through a centralized messaging feature.
96%
User satisfactions
91%
Success rate

| Discovery

The client seeks assistance in understanding the factors influencing parents' decisions regarding what schools their children attend, as part of launching a new product.

Qualitative Interviews

6 parents with children aged 5-10 were interviewed to discuss their experiences, challenges, and frustrations when searching for schools for their children's education.

Key Insights

  • Unanimous focus on children’s well-being in every aspect of the process.
  • The main initial consideration was the school’s class size, then cost, location, and academics.
  • However, the biggest deciding factor was gut reaction from in-person meetings, tours, and the school's interaction with their children.
“Once I took my kids to the school tour and notice how they interact, it was a gut reaction that this was the school.”
“It was a bit disconcerting to hear the number of schools that said they can't accommodate a child with special needs.”

Empathy Map

To have a better understanding of my research from my affinity diagram, I highlighted parents' key influences, tasks, pain points, emotions, and goals.

This helped me build a road map on what are the similarities across each parents to outline for the design.

Pain Points

Unable to meet criteria

Parents want to choose the best school for their child but must balance budget, location, and specific needs.

Hard to compare

Parents struggle to compare schools effectively, making it difficult to identify key differences and similarities that align with their criteria.

Lack of clear tour options

Biggest factor is how parents must individually contact each school to schedule a visit, making it harder to assess their child's fit.

Competitive Analysis

Key insights from the competitive analysis show that competitors (Public School Review, GreatSchools, Niche, and CollegeSimply) primarily target the American market and offer basic school comparison features.

However, they lack integrated cross-platform reviews and direct messaging with schools, instead redirecting users to external websites or email.

How might we...

Build a platform for parents connect to school of their choice more efficiently?

| Ideation

Before creating the wireframes, I started to prioritized key features using MoSCoW and the Eisenhower method. I also developed task scenarios to best aligned with the parents' pain points and goals.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

I conduct paper Crazy 8s for rapid ideation to generate diverse design ideas. From there, I converged on the frames that best suited the platform and created additional frames to ensure smoother transitions for each task flow.

| Testing

Usability Testing Findings

  1. Users were have a hard time going back to the previous page as there was no visible button.
  2. Users struggled to understand some icons at first glance, as their use is not immediately clear to them.
  3. Users have a difficulty finding where to add the school to compare.
  4. Users took the longest on the first task as they tend to explore other pages.

Usability Testing Parameters

1. Study type

Moderated usability study

2. Location

United States, In-person

3. Length

30 - 45 minutes

4. Participants

3 parents of mixed genders, aged 35–45, with children ranging from 3-13 years old, participated in the testing.

5. Participants demographics

  • Parents and guardians aged 30-49
  • Have school-aged children (K-12)
  • Located in America
  • Excludes adults without children or with children over 18 years old

Task Scenarios

  1. You are a parent looking to transfer your child to a school with smaller class sizes. You have a few schools in mind and want to compare their similarities and differences. Find a way to compare school details.
  2. You are a parent visiting schools to observe how teachers and staff interact with your child, as this is key to a positive environment. Find where you can schedule a school tour.
  3. You prioritize the experiences of other parents and students when choosing a school for your child. Find reviews or testimonials from individuals who have attended the school you are considering.

| Refining

I made action recommendations based on usability testing and refined the designs after each round.

| Design

Highlights of my UI design process include selecting colors, fonts, and creating the overall feel, while ensuring inclusivity in every aspect.

Color Meaning

When choosing the color scheme, I wanted to create a sense of wisdom and intelligence—qualities deeply tied to education. Blue and yellow, a classic pairing in learning environments, became the foundation. To add a fresh and inviting touch, I introduced light blue, bringing vibrancy and a unique energy to the design.

Accessibility Considerations

Icon with text

The user's demographic may have difficulty understanding the icon without reinforced text.

Contrast level

Meeting WCAG AA+ guidelines ensures parents  would not have difficulty accessing and reading the information.

Readability

Parents will be navigating a lot of information, so a clear hierarchy and readable font are essential for easy comprehension.

| Conclusion

The final high-fidelity prototype showed a smooth user flow for completing actions the app and design to have a modern yet fun design to attract gamers from different backgrounds.

View high-fid prototype
View high-fid prototype

Results

Parents enjoyed using the platform as it provides a central place to explore school options, check nearby schools, and connect with them for tours.

Key improvements from testing include:
  • 96% of users were satisfied with the tasks
  • 91% success rate of users successfully completing the tasks

Reflection

I learned that I should include more body copy to ask additional follow-up questions beyond the task scenarios to probe deeper in the user’s thinking and processing.

When indicating initial time, I should consider adding more time allotted to the first task as user will explore the interface.

Next Steps

Conduct more research

Conduct live testing to evaluate how the new changes impact user experience and task flow.

Optimize user flow

Perform card sorting to improve the information architecture based on what parents seek when searching for schools.

Test with schools admissions

Test with the school admissions team to improve their experience as a central messaging hub between parents and schools.