ABOUT THE PROJECT
- Parent- School App, is an application developed for parents who are involved in their child’s education.
- This app can be used by the parents to keep a track on their children’s education by the data provided on the app by the school.
- The idea behind the app was that the school would update the student’s information such as academic progress report, his grades, his participation in extra curricular activities, his classwork and homework in the app; so as to make it instantly available for parents.
- The app also included curriculum videos of the subjects he is taking, to help the child better understand the topic he is learning.
Why the project started?
- Hureo was a UX Research consultancy firm.
- Hired to do evaluative research on an existing prototype ready to be launched in less than a month.
CONSTRAINTS
1. Fill in the gaps with appropriate research methods which should have been done pre-design.
2. We were given 2 weeks to provide the entire research.
2. We were given 2 weeks to provide the entire research.
PROBLEM STATEMENTS
1. To evaluate the perception of a parent, having a child between grade one to seven, and analyzing their usage of the app, ‘Parent-School App’.
2. To examine if the app is a good fit in the current market and how it compares to other existing school applications.
2. To examine if the app is a good fit in the current market and how it compares to other existing school applications.
GOALS
- Identify parents’ needs and challenges according to their child’s requirements.
- Suggesting designs based on these needs and challenges.
- Research on the use of any existing educational apps.
- Understanding a preferred price point for such apps.
- Conduct a usability testing to understand the design friendliness of the app.
RESEARCH METHODS USED
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH |
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH |
Frequency Calculations |
Contextual Surveys |
A/B Testing |
User Interviews (Remote and In-person) |
Cardsorting Exercise |
Usability Tests |
Value |
User Persona |
Jouney Maps |
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
Steps:-
- Recruiting the right candidates.
- Empathy Interviews.
- User Persona Creation
- Journey Maps.
- High-Level Findings Report.
Recruiting right candidates:
In such a small given timeline, we could not afford having an improper recruitment of users who instead being the target users turn out to be outliers and thus, judging the entire feasibility of the project based on people who may or may not be using the app afterall. Thus, we did a through recruitment even on our end instead of just sticking to company given users.
Differentiating Criteria |
Company Given Users |
Newly Found Users |
Background/ Knowledge of app |
The company had launched similar apps in their child's school before; thus they were familiar with the company and their work. |
Had no idea about such applications. Some had never even heard of the concept. |
Building contact |
Search from the given list of parents, by the company and pick out the ones that fit the existing demographics |
With the help of google search and few keywords, we compiled a document of parents who fit the demographics and tried contacting each one by offering incentive for being part of the research interviews. |
Challenges in recruitment |
None, as the list was preexisting. We only had to pick out the suitable candidates that fit the demographics. |
Getting unknown people to trust and believe us in participating in field tests. |
Language/ Lifestyle |
Most families from the given list were well educated and spoke in english for the interview. |
Difficulty understanding few users who were not fluent in English and only spoke their local language. |
Example questions asked for recruiting participants:
Q) How techno savvy are you?
Q) How many children do you have? What is their age?
(To check if they fit in the age group of defined participants)
- What apps do you use on your phone?
- Do you use any shopping apps or bank transaction apps? Are you on social media?
Q) How many children do you have? What is their age?
(To check if they fit in the age group of defined participants)
Empathy Interviews:
- Created a questionnaire to further understand the user, their professional life, everyday life, challenges faced, how much time they could/were willing to spend for their children, amongst other things.
- Using the questionnaire we not only researched on the users’ answers but we also analyzed his behavior, reactions and his triggers.
- The questionnaire centered around the grounds of knowing the users thoroughly. The domains were:
b. Technology usage g. Technology usage of their children
c. Child’s details h. Any time restrictions to use such devices.
d. School details i. What challenges do parents face while managing
e. Existing School App? j. Their child’s school activities?
- This information was later used to form userpersonas and journey maps to further understand the usage of the app in its raw form, in day to day life.
User Types
- While conducting interviews of parents we soon realized that even though the app is designed for understanding students' school performance its main target users were parents along with restricted access to their children.
- Thus, the primary users for the study would be parents. Thus, the key targets for our usability studies were parents and secondary users were the children.
User Persona
After the initial analysis of the data we created user personas to best describe the users that were likely to use the product. |
Journey Maps
- With the help of the initial empathy interviews we created Journey Maps, which helped better understand the daily schedules of parents. Through this data we could deduce how much time of the day they spend for themselves, their children, and on other activities.
- It also reflected how this app could help manage their time more efficiently in regards to their child’s school related work.
Observations:
Based on a "day in the life" of participant, the app could help in the following ways:
- Give rewards on the app if the kids wake up on time and get themselves ready and hit the door on time.
- During her ideal time or any other brief break in her daily schedule she can check notifications/app updates on her kid's progress.
- After school she can give the app to the child to use and set a time limit and other restrictions of the phone for her to decide what the son can view from her phone.
- During homework time children can review notes updated from teachers and watch other helpful videos referred by faculty/teachers on the app.
- At the end of the day give extra points if they help in chores or did extra things they weren't supposed to.
High-Level Findings Report

Gathering the data and finding a pattern between the users and understanding their needs and documenting it into a report and suggesting further developed designs for the application.
After conducting the Heuristic Evaluation the client was hugely impressed by our progress in a short span and asked us to come on site to give the presentation and be part of an early launch which was possible due to our work.
Overall Research Findings |
Recommendations |
Parents need to motivate their child by rewards. |
Rewards section that gives children points similar to what a gaming app does. |
Working parents don’t always get enough time for their child’s school work. |
Summary section giving them the highlights of today’s day. |
Children use Google or YouTube to understand any topic or solve their doubts. |
Subject section which includes videos and other resources for extra topic related information. |
Parents from high and middle class economic background were more likely to buy the application |
Price should be decided based on the target users most likely to buy the app. |
Parents don’t let kids have there own devices. |
App design should be more user friendly towards parents and should work properly on the models generally used by parents. |
Parents were reluctant to give technology devices for prolonged duration of time. |
Adding a pop-up timer notification with a set time limit. |