Better School Choice

Case Study

Parenting is already hard.
Searching for a school should be easy.

Even before the birth of their child, parents are faced with the stress of finding the right school community. They state that the fragmented data currently in the market and the part-time state of school searching are major roadblocks


Better School Choice enters with the goal to alleviate these challenges by carving a niche corner of the current marketplace at the intersection of community engagement and informative school searches. The platform offers parents a robust school search database, the ability to schedule tours and on-site meetings, connect with other parents, faculty members, and academic professionals for their insights, and join communities of other parents in their child’s school.


As the lead UX Researcher/UI Designer, I synthesized raw data and leveraged it to design the Better School Choice app that tested well with parents who are currently in the midst of the school search. I also leveraged my writing skills to implement concise and informative language that found success during the usability testing stages.

Introduction

ROLE

UX/UI Designer, Researcher, & Writer

SKILLS

Figma, Research, Prototyping, Data Synthesization, Ideation and Creative Production, Copywriting

OBJECTIVE

Ideate, prototype, and test a product for parents undergoing the school search.

Dec. 2023 - April 2024

TIME SPAN

Methodology & Analysis

  • Parents want their children to enter a collaborative community where their kids can find long-term success.

  • Parents value the opinions of other parents, faculty members, and schools’ admission offices.

  • The school search starts well before a child is even ready to attend school, typically taking close to a year.

  • Parents desire a product that prioritizes the school search while connecting with other parents for their feedback.

To better understand the problems parents faced, our client provided interview transcripts they conducted with their target audience.

I extrapolated the following key takeaways:

Competitive Analysis

Sometimes what they’re doing isn’t what we need

  • Competitors offered a secondary real estate function, but evidence showed our target users had no desire to relocate.

  • Competitors’ platforms were text-heavy, leaving room for a multimedia approach.

  • Information on schools are fragmented across platform; the more information our platform can gather, the better.

  • There is an opportunity to offer educational, professional, and personal resources to better assist parents, students, and other users in their industries.

With a better understanding of our target audience, we used the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threat) method to identify how competitors service or address their needs. From five of the top marketshare holders we uncovered the following:

Usability Tests

With great information comes great designability

The solutions and design methods were rooted in understanding how we can provide a product that alleviates the many hours parents allocate to the search. By analyzing the competition, empathizing with users, and testing our designs though multiple stages, we developed a tool that is intuitive, connective, and informative.

We tested five couples with children currently undergoing the school search. Their success metrics were as follows:

  • Users should be able to complete tasks in 15 seconds or less

  • Users should be able to complete tasks in less than 5 clicks

  • Users shouldn’t take more than 3 unhappy paths

And the results?

  • Majority of users (90%) tested well below the clicks and time of completion for their tasks.

  • Testers liked the familiar layout and design of the product.

  • They found it easy to complete tasks because the home page had everything they required to find schools and other users.

High Fidelity Prototype

Ultimately, with the users testing well, the design remain the same, with copy and UI tweaks being made, on top of intentional consideration into what information needed to be accessed quickly from the school search function.

There is an emphasis on the parents in each school community, the parent ratings, on top of how each school stacks up against the user’s criteria that are set when they create their profile. The point is to reduce the part-time feeling.

This stage also served as an optimal time to leverage my writing skills. Because we want information to come through in a concise manner, all copy did not exceed more than 280 characters. All copy should be informative, quick to read and decipher to best get users in and out.

Okay, so how does it all come together?

Reflections

The best lesson I learned throughout this case study was trusting the user. With so many of life’s stressors bearing down on us, we often don’t want to add any extra brainpower to tasks.

However, one note stood out to me during the user test process. How would I redesign this product so that the school search function was front and center? At the moment, a user would have to click on the search bar in the main navigation and type in their parameters. Alternatively, they can view a list of schools and users from the side navigation cards. But what if the product opened to just the search function, leaving the connectivity functions as secondary?

With enough time, I believe I could come up with a redesign that works well to that note. For now, I walk away from this project with the utmost respect for the people I create these solutions for. By listening to them, the design comes forth with no extra added effort.

Lessons and next steps