Project scope



Qooco Kids has been around for 7+ years. Initially built as a B2B eLearning solution for partnering schools in China, over the years the platform has expanded to other markets and adopted alternative business models.


The platform is a Swiss-knife for online-meets-offline education. Among other things, it is meant to:

  • Get the students in line with school curriculum
  • Evaluate learning progress
  • Build positive learning habits
  • Provide real-time analytics for parents and teachers
  • Assist school teachers with mundane tasks




Challenges



1️⃣⠀Establish and seamlessly introduce design processes to existing corporate workflows


2️⃣⠀Individually target and address the pain points for multiple end-user types


3️⃣⠀Take advantage of new technology to gradually bring interaction and UI design in line with today's market standards


4️⃣⠀Simplify content exploration, exercising, performance review, and other key flows


5️⃣⠀Introduce retention- and engagement- boosting techniques appropriate for younger audiences



The starting point



Step 1





Dealing with a massive product that is already on a market with active user base has its peculiarities.


1️⃣⠀The scope. I needed everyone on the team to be on the same page on design objectives, priorities, and the acceptance criteria.


2️⃣⠀User research. Research existing users of each type and find what they use, what they don't use, what is giving them a hard time, etc.


3️⃣⠀A transition strategy. A plan how to introduce changes gradually without giving the app that 'Frankenstein' feel along the way.


For me, good communication has become the key to success. Stakeholder interviews, requirement workshops, and regular team meetings have tremendously helped to make re-design scope and purpose clear to everyone.




Competitor benchmarking



Step 2



Browsing through competing apps, defining where they shine and where they lack, and discussing my findings with the team allowed me to

  • set up-to-date quality standards for the developers
  • raise team's awareness on designing for younger audiences
  • study different implementations of the same learning activity to assume which solutions would work for us
  • get a better understanding of the technological limitations on today's market


Information architecture



Step 3



Personas



Step 4



This technique helped me and the team to embrace the variety of platform's end-users, understand how different their pain-points are, and address them individually



PRIMARY PERSONA





Goals


•⠀Be on top of her class in school next year

•⠀Make a lot of friends

•⠀Learn English to impress bilingual friends


Pain points


•⠀Gets bored doing same thing over and over again

•⠀Gets distracted

•⠀Worries about making mistakes in front of her friends



SECONDARY PERSONA





Goals


•⠀To ensure that every student grasps the material

•⠀To automate and simplify mundane tasks

•⠀To have students engaging with Qooco Kids directly


Pain points


•⠀Doing a lot of extra unpaid work assisting other teachers

•⠀Difficult students



SECONDARY PERSONA





Goals


•⠀Prepare Meihui to work hard and do well in school

•⠀Excel at work while giving family what they need

•⠀Learn enough English to help Meihui with her grade


Pain points


•⠀Work-life balance

•⠀Afraid to push Meihui too hard

•⠀Does not want to waste time on inefficient learning



SECONDARY PERSONA





Goals


•⠀Make personal connection with the student she coaches

•⠀Minimize the frustrations her students may feel while they learn

•⠀Refine her English teaching methods

•⠀Ignite a passion for language in children


Pain points


•⠀Unsure of what kind of teaching career she wants to pursue

•⠀Increasing workload at school

•⠀Punctuality of her students



Prioritization plotting



Step 5





The technique has been very helpful for drafting a transition strategy. To make it work, I had to take multiple factors into account:


1️⃣⠀Total number of modules the app consists of.
2️⃣⠀Which modules are used frequently, which are not.

3️⃣⠀Which modules represent the competitive advantage

4️⃣⠀Which modules are most important for the paying customers


After running my drafts through the rest of the team, I was able to build this chart.







Sneak peak



Step 6



With Qooco Kids the work is never done. We are on a constant look for ways to personalize the learning flow, to engage our students, to introduce new learning activities, to evaluate progress more accurately, etc. We design, prototype, research, evaluate again, and again, and again.


Yet, the results are already here. Check it out for yourself 👇



AFTER - HOME SCREEN



✅⠀gives visual structure to learning activities

✅⠀prioritizes the most important actions

✅⠀personalized UX for students and teachers

✅⠀introduces playful look & feel



AFTER - COURSE PICKER



✅⠀Prioritizes information via visual hierarchy

✅⠀Limits the number of presented UI components

✅⠀Quick resume, quick search, and other accelerators



AFTER - EXERCISE PICKER



✅⠀customizes exercises based on individual needs

✅⠀limits the number of presented UI components

✅⠀introduces visual structure

✅⠀clear progress indicator



AFTER - RESULT SCREEN



✅⠀simplifies scoring for the user

✅⠀easy-to-digest visual structure, navigation

✅⠀clear performance summary



AFTER - NAVIGATION DRAWER



✅⠀groups the most helpful tools in one place

✅⠀targets students and teachers individually



BEFORE - HOME SCREEN



For educational app, we regarded the home screen as communicational hub. A place for the user to get back to for learning objectives, performance review, encouragement, etc. In this case the interface


❌⠀does none of the above

❌⠀feels very formal



BEFORE - COURSE PICKER



❌⠀Places UI element in overlapping zones

❌⠀Displays too much info at once

❌⠀Has no helpful accelerators



BEFORE - EXERCISE PICKER



❌⠀Overcomplicates app navigation

❌⠀Places UI elements in overlapping zones

❌⠀Displays too much info at once

❌⠀Does not customize exercises



BEFORE - RESULT SCREEN



❌⠀Overcomplicates scoring

❌⠀Does not provide visual reward

❌⠀Does not indicate short-term goal clearly



BEFORE - NAVIGATION DRAWER



❌⠀Does not reflect the needs of different end-users

❌⠀ Uses lo-fi visual identifiers

❌⠀ Feels very formal



Get in touch!



Want to know more about my projects?
Maybe check out my e-commerce, finance or other designs?

Connect with me on linkedin, instagram or email
👇