✺ Homeschool App
Building a comprehensive solution for
homeschoolers
Homeschool Plus is an innovative platform that empowers home educators to create a customized learning environment where children aged 4 to 8 can thrive. With fully adaptive math and reading programs and a wide range of online courses covering art, science, social studies, and more, Homeschool Plus offers a comprehensive and engaging curriculum. The platform also provides robust home educator tools to support parents' unique homeschooling needs.
Client
Age of Learning Inc.
Duration
12 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Jira, Confluence, WCAG 2.0 guidelines
Methods
Product Design, Research, Mobile Design, Interaction Design
Key results & Impacts
My Role
Team
Camilo Bejanero (Senior UX Designer)
Chris Leavens (Creative Director)
Challenge
There are over 5.5 million homeschooled students in the United States alone. Homeschooling has grown drastically from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021, overshadowing its brisk growth of 8.3% in previous years. Homeschooling enrollment numbers have increased across all races and ethnicities in the U.S. According to a report from Education Next, the percentage of homeschoolers in the U.S. in 2022 was 6.6%.
Even before the pandemic era, many parents were homeschooling and in need of a tool for planning, managing, and suggesting learning for their child. To compete in the homeschooling market, we need to develop a comprehensive and engaging curriculum that caters to diverse educational needs. Additionally, we should provide a user-friendly interface with customization options.
Process & Solution
Research
To better understand our target audience and competitors, we conducted extensive user and market research. This included a competitive analysis to identify our competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and online presence. Additionally, we conducted interviews and surveys with homeschool parents and children aged 4 to 8 to gain insights into their needs, frustrations, and preferences.
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Target audience
• A parent mainly medium income group
• Age between 30 and 40
• Primarily manage schedules with mobile apps
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Insights & Opportunities
Based on our research findings, and the assumption on ideal user journey, we identified the key needs of our target audience.
Problem Statement
"Homeschooling parents struggle with managing and planning their child's education, finding engaging learning resources, and navigating a competitive market, and need a tool that simplifies the process, provides high-quality and adaptable curriculum, and offers flexible features to meet their unique needs
User persona
We created user personas that represent the target audience
Ideation & Design
We began the design process by brainstorming feature ideas. Then, we worked with the product manager to define product requirements. Finally, we created a prioritization matrix to determine which features to focus on first.
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Final Design
Prototype → MVP
Transforming our high-fidelity wireframes into an interactive prototype, we effectively communicated with developers to build the MVP product. This allowed us to simulate the user experience more realistically, identify any issues, and make necessary improvements.
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Test
Usability Testing – During the usability testing sessions, participants were asked to perform specific tasks related to managing lesson plans, tracking progress, and navigating through the platform. We observed their interactions with the prototype, took notes, and recorded their feedback. This allowed us to identify any pain points, usability issues, or areas where the user experience could be improved.
Analyze Results & Iterate – After the testing sessions, we analyzed the results, focusing on identifying patterns and trends in user behavior and feedback. This analysis informed the changes and improvements that needed to be made to the platform. We iterated on the design, addressing the identified issues and refining the user experience based on the insights gathered during the testing phase.
Test result & Next iteration
Parents desired longer daily lessons for a more comprehensive learning experience.
There was a request for short quizzes after each lesson for better progress tracking.
Families with multiple children expressed a need for an overview of all kids' schedules.
The platform received positive feedback for its user-friendly experience, and families expressed interest in continued learning with the platform.
Parents like a "Skip the day" feature for flexibility in scheduling.
Learnings
Collaboration and Efficiency: Streamlining the design process, implementing a design system, and fostering collaboration between designers and developers have significantly improved efficiency and consistency. This has resulted in a polished product that is easily maintained and expanded upon.
Continuous Improvement: Usability testing and user feedback have been invaluable in identifying pain points, usability issues, and areas for improvement. Iterating on the design based on these insights ensures that we continuously enhance the user experience and meet the evolving needs of our users
