Education Excellence Website
UX/UI
Project Overview
We worked as a team of 10, with 6 weeks for the project, including the build of a high-fidelity prototype.
The project purpose was to help a start up determine whether there was need and viability for a program that would assist schools and students broaden their subject choices.
Product
Website
Create a platform that provides students and schools the opportunities to offer and engage with a broad variety of learning experiences at the Year 10 curriculum level.
Objective
This project started broad. The start-up founder expressed to us that the idea came through their own experiences with their child and by speaking to other parents. They thought there might be a user opportunity - but needed us to investigate whether it was viable.
Our initial approach was to narrow down the problem. We realised we couldn’t cater to all students, across all year levels, in every state. Laws and education curriculums varied state to state. The client had users for us to interview - school principals and teachers, parents and students. These were primarily from East Coast Australia, so we focussed on the curriculum there. The opportunity really lay with year 10 students - before they had finalised their higher school certificate subjects.
We refined out problem statement to:
Students are frustrated by a lack of personalised study options and want to expand their horizons, however they feel hindered by the limited school curriculum and the constraints of the current education system.
As a team, we completed:
16 interviews with students, parents and education staff
61 surveys
Competitor analysis of three online schools and six universities
Desktop research of the virtual school market to ascertain the size and influences of the market
Design Process
Key Insights
Almost 2/3 of students would consider visiting a different school for a subject
70% of students who did work experience said it helped them to understand their future work aspirations
1 in 2 students would study a “taster” course outside of school hours
31% prefer a hybrid learning environment
(but 2/3 prefer face to face learning)
Support schools to allow students the opportunity to explore future study and career paths or build life skills by experiencing a variety of subjects in Year 10?”
How might we
Pain Points
Students found online subjects challenging, and whilst they generally enjoyed work experience, they had ideas on how it could be improved
”A more structured or longer period of work”
”More actual work, more hands on”
“More opportunities, as we only had the chance to experience one field of work”
“We didn't have an accounting teacher so we had to zoom into the accounting class from City campus. The teacher had to teach two classes at the same time. I had her for like 10 minutes of her lesson. I pretty much just learnt it myself. That was a struggle.”
- Year 12 student
Parents were frustrated at the lack of options available to their children
"It was like a big fail that she couldn't do these basic subjects and she couldn't access them. It’s quite upsetting because we pay a lot of money a private school."
- Parent of four, with a daughter in year 10
Educators shared the challenges they faced with increasing subject offerings
“To open one class, it depends on the level because it's a resourcing reason. You need to have in some cases specialist teachers to run the class particularly in secondary. Then you need to have rooms and potentially specialist rooms depending on the subject. So student choice, teacher expertise, the funding, the amount of students in the class, and space."
- Principal
Ideation
We narrowed the project scope to assist students, recognising that there was also a need to assist educators.
Three main opportunities were discovered that would benefit students:
1. Hands-on, industry experience beyond the standard two weeks of work experience.
2. Access to taster subjects, giving students the chance to try a subject to see if it’s the right fit before fully committing.
3. The ability to study alternative subjects that aren’t offered by their school.
Due to school competition and government regulations we prefaced that the solution would be challenging to implement - but there was certainly a need from students.
Worst Idea Ideation Session
I put together and hosted a “Worst Idea Ever” brainstorm with the team.
See the session deck here
Solutions
Subscription learning model
Micro taster courses
Community driven learning
Industry experiences
Hybrid learning delivery
Career coaching
One time course payment
Social media integration
Future Opportunities
Timetabling: Create a timetable system for students
Schools as subscribers: Establish supplier relationship with private and regional schools
Educator portal: Design a portal for educators to connect with students
Partnerships: Explore partnerships with providers such as universities
Prototype and Learnings
This project was taught me how to create a reverse brief and to narrow down the project scope. When we were initially briefed, it felt like a huge task - it started with a basic brand guide and colours and we were able to distil it down to a defined problem. Speaking to parents and students was interesting and ideating with potential solutions was exciting.
Figma prototype of our Education Excellence website.