Project: Educator Portal UX/UI
Problem
7Mindsets.com, a K-12 SEL edtech company, hired me to research and recommend UX/UI improvements to their Educator Portal so that users (teachers and administrators) would enjoy an engaging and effortless experience. The business wanted more users to return to the Portal and deepen their understanding of the curriculum.
My Role
I contributed to the project as Lead UX Researcher.
UX Research & Analysis
In order to design an experience that would meet both business goals and user needs, it was important to understand the pain points of the educator’s experience with the current Educator Portal as well as the vision for the Portal from the perspective of internal stakeholders.
In collaboration with the Director of Marketing, I sent usability surveys to users (teachers and counselors) and conducted focus group interviews. I met with stakeholders (CEO, VPs, and Directors) in the company to understand their business goals.
I analyzed and summarized the feedback to discuss with the development & design team. Together we identified quick wins that could be implemented right away, and prioritized areas to improve for the next iteration of the Portal.
I also created a Theory of Action and proposed success criteria (KPIs) to guide the team throughout the project: this is what we believe will happen should we make these improvements, and this is how we will know it was a success.
I created a Miro board where I collected and analyzed the user interview and survey data on the current Portal experience. I horizontally (within each user group) and vertically (across all user groups) analyzed the data for insights that were then summarized and shared with the development team.
UX/UI Design
Mockups & Prototypes
I worked closely with the UX/UI Designer to translate my research findings into mockups and prototypes in Figma. I ran a live prototype test on Maze.com and a Think Aloud session with users around the six main tasks in the Portal that we wanted to improve.
Welcome Screen and Agenda for Prototype Test with Users
I created an Affinity Map from their feedback and summarized these findings for the team. Together we discussed and decided on what to change for the next iteration.
The Affinity Map in Miro
Results
The first phase of improvements to the Educator Portal experience were deployed in October, 2022 (see Release Notes). By October 1, 2023, the Portal reached 1 million lessons accessed two months earlier than the prior year (they reached one million lessons accessed in December 2022). This represents a 20% increase in usage of the Educator Portal YOY. The number of educators on the platform also increased in the year since the platform experience improvements, from 110,000 users to reaching over 129,000 users.
This page was last modified: March 1, 2024