RogerMillerMpls@hotmail.com
Project
St. Thomas wants to know how well their online platform currently performs for their teachers and administrators.
Recommendation
Although there is functionality that can be eventually discovered, the user interface impedes the user from quickly and easily doing their administrative tasks and focus on their main task of teaching.
UX Components
Cognitive Walkthrough
Contextual Inquiry
Research Findings
Prototyping
School Attendace & Grading Website
Taking the time out of attendance taking… simplifying a website interface.
A private school in St. Paul with students ranging from Kindergarten through 8th grade currently uses an enterprise website tool to track attendance and post grades among other activities. The administrators want to know how well it’s working and how it could be improved.
Cognitive Walkthrough Chart
Cognitive Walkthrough
Understanding the tool by using it.
Cognitive walkthroughs are used to examine whether or not a new user can easily carry out tasks within a given system. With a list of steps needed to take attendance and enter grades, I went step by step through the tasks as I asked:
Will the user try to achieve the right outcome?
Is the correct action visible?
Is there a clear connection between the control and resulting action?
Is there sufficient and/or appropriate feedback?
I found many areas of confusion and complexity that I delved into with additional research into actual users and the site.
Original dashboard was complex and confusing.
Contextual Inquiry
Watching teachers and administrators use the site.
I conducted 3 interviews with teachers and administrators of the St. Thomas More school. They walked through how they use the platform to perform key tasks related to their jobs: specifically taking attendance and entering assignment information and grades.
During these interviews, I found that:
Each user figures out the minimum of what they need to do to satisfy the requirements of their position. In doing so, they often need to come up with workarounds or ignore the noise of the rest of the tool. It is inefficient.
Users would like the tool to be customized to their individual role. Teachers need to take attendance, add assignments and grades. Everything else is noise.
The UI does not recognize the most important tasks for teachers. Icons should be clear, easy to select. They only have a couple of minutes in the morning to take attendance - it needs to be simple.
Tasks to Improve
Simplify and ease the steps of taking attendance in the morning by redesigning the dashboard. Removing content that isn’t used, and highlighting the attendance functionality.
Ease the finding and entering of information for a new class assignment. Eliminate the use of tiny, unclear icons and create better affordance and way-finding to accomplish this key activity.
Hand Sketches
Initial dashboard sketch
Initial grade book design
Proposed Scenario #1
Time to take attendance.
John is in his classroom awaiting his 4th grade students to arrive. He has his computer on his desk, and he is signed into the school attendance website. The dashboard tells him he is signed in, shows him the date and time, the weather for the day, his calendar and which students have birthdays that day.
Yesterday he entered an icebreaker question that he sees on the screen. The question today is “Would you rather be a mouse in an elephant body, or an elephant in a mouse body?” His students are listed on the dashboard - so it’s easy for him to check them in as they answer the question. The attendance choices are simple: Present, Absent, Tardy. Very few clicks and he’s on to teaching. Oh, and happy birthday to Marty.
Proposed Scenario #2
Create and manage assignments.
One of a teacher’s primary tasks includes creating and managing assignments and entering grades after completion. Sarah is planning her 2nd trimester math classes. She goes to her dashboard, clicks on her Math tab. Once there, she clicks on Add Assignment. The next screen allows her to fill out information for her upcoming assignments. There is no hunting for tiny icons or hidden links to launch the assignments creator window. It’s easy to find and fill out.
Pop-up window to create a new assignment.
Animated Prototype Walkthrough
A streamlined UI with only the information needed to take attendance and manage assignments .
Watch a video of my prototype screens with comments.
Conclusion
UX Design brings the skill-set needed to uncover pain-points and priorities needed to make tools like this one work for busy teachers. Often, the recommendations involve removing roadblocks and simplifying a site structure to enable people to accomplish their online goals and get back to work, or school, or life. I enjoyed uncovering the key needs of teachers and designing how this site can more easily accomplish those tasks.
Next Case Study: Meditation Match