Literator
Creating a way to group students
Digital reading binder for teachers
Business goal
Business goal
Design a feature for the next mobile release that will increase app usage and increase retention.
The goal of the project was to design a feature for the next app release that would increase app usage
Company
Literator
Role
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Platform
iOS
Android
Year
2018
Research
Understand the users
The Lead UX Designer and I visited a local 3rd grade classroom. During the visit we observed a reading workshop. The teacher used the workshop to check in on each student's reading progress.
Key takeaways
During our classroom visit, I observed the following:
- Teachers have a tough job
- The teacher met with 3 students while the other students read to themselves
- The teacher uses a binder to note a student's reading progress
- The teacher got distracted by a student who was playing around instead of reading
Audit existing app
To understand the current user experience, I created an account with students and tested the features.
Key takeaways
A few things stood out to me:
- Students added one-by-one: or in bulk by emailing a file with a class list
- No way to create a group of students: users can only access one student's profile at a time
- More robust web experience: the web version has more features, like the ability to add students to a group
Ideate
With the goal of increasing mobile app usage in mind, I took my observations and sketched ideas focusing on:
- Reducing time to add students into system
- Providing a way for a teacher to review past reading workshops
- Unifying the web and mobile apps experience
- Providing an experience closer to teacher's current workflow
Test ideas and concepts
Next we validated our ideas by recruiting users to test our prototypes. We also asked them about their current workflow and pain points.
Key takeaways
The ideas we tested didn't meet a key need: teachers didn't want features that would add to their workload.
We knew from our research that teachers meet with more than one student at a time. The web experience already had a way to group students but the mobile app did not. Thus designing a way to groups students in the mobile app would have the most impact.
Design
User Flow
To figure out how a way to group students I started by revising the user flow. I added additional flows for (in orange):
- How to create a group
- How to add a student to a group
- How to access a group
- How to edit a group
Testing the User Flow
I created a lo-fidelity prototype called a priority guide to visualize the new user flow. We recruited users to confirm the flow made sense.
I created a lo-fidelity prototype called a priority guide to visualize the new user flow. We recruited users to confirm the flow made sense.
Wireframes
Next I created wireframes to get a sense of how the existing (Home) and new (Group) screens would look.
Usability Testing
We recruited teachers to test the prototype. We wanted to:
- See if they could add a student group
- Use the Group screen to note reading progress
User feedback
Solution
Student groups was one of the most request features for the mobile app. Teachers typically met with students so it was natural to have the ability to create student groups.
Student groups was one of the most requested features for the mobile app. Teachers typically met with students so it was natural to have the ability to create student groups.
Student groups
The "Students" section at the top of the Group screen shows all the students in the group. The letter next to the name is their current reading level. Tapping a name label either selects or deselects a student. Groups have all students selected by default.
Below the "Students" sections is the "Conferring with" section. This section shows the selected students. Teachers can only rate the skills of selected students. Tapping on a student in the "Conferring with" section will go to the student's profile screen.
Additional features
- The "Students" section sticks to the top of the screen to remind the teacher who is in the student group
- Tapping the "Add Note" button shows the different types of "Notes" available. This reduced the number of floating buttons from two to one. Also, I added a label to remind users what the button is for.
- I added a bookmark icon to the top of each skill to flag it. This helps teachers note which skills needs attention. Flagged skills are viewable in the "Review" tab.
Results
The new feature was instrumental in converting free users to paid. In addition, after the feature release the retention rate went from 10% to 60% quarter-over-quarter.
victor@iamvictorlin.com
