Curiouss Kids (yes the name is Curiouss and not Curious) is a web and mobile based application created for a preschool of the same name based out of Hubballi, India. This women-run preschool is a part of YHI International Educational LLP and currently has 15 children enrolled.
The application is primarily focused on helping the parents feel involved in their child's growth and receive timely updates from the teachers regarding their child's progress.
Team
UX Designer - myself
Managing Director - Sagar Irakal
Tools used
Figma
Canva
Miro
Timeline
5 months
RESEARCH
Understanding the context.
At Curiouss Kids, parents wanted to stay informed about all the exciting activities and learning their children are experiencing.
However, for teachers, communicating after school or through notes can be challenging and sometimes unclear.
Curiouss Kids was looking for a better way to keep parents in the loop, so they can feel like they're part of an awesome preschool adventure.
TARGET USERS
Say hi to the users.
THE TEACHER
Meera Desai | the web app user.
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Meera is a dedicated teacher at Curiouss Kids who has restarted her teaching career at 45.
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After school, she often faces parents eager for updates on their children’s progress, but it’s tough to remember every detail unless a child has really stood out.
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Meera, who is not so tech-savvy, needs an application to easily update parents on their kids' progress, notify them about events, homework, and holidays.
THE PARENT
Heena Sharma | the mobile app user.
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Heena is mom to a 3 year old daughter Aisha, who is currently enrolled at Curiouss Kids.
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Juggling between her 9-to-5 job and household responsibilities, she often finds it difficult to spend time with Aisha and get to know more about her day at school.
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Heena is looking for a way to get updates on her daughter's progress and maintain communication with the teachers.
HOW TEACHERS FUNCTION
Existing methods used by teachers to update parents.
Post-it notes
Teachers used post-it notes to note down any significant observation of a child.
Noting in a register
Teachers noted down one to two observations against a child's name in the attendance register.
Paper notices
For each holiday, event, assignment, etc. the school printed out papers to distribute among students.
However, these methods took up a lot of the teacher's time and did not allow them to focus on their teaching well. Most of their time was spent in doing such administrative work.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we make communication less stressful and more synchronized for teachers and parents of the preschool?
Features included to bridge the communication gap
Daily recap
A feature where teachers can convey their observations on a child's progress, behavior, and noteworthy activities throughout the day to the parents.
Editable notices
As opposed to the competitors, our application provides teachers with the ability to edit the content of the notices along with changing the date of submission after posting.
Keeping up
If a child is absent on a particular day, the parent can view a section called 'Here's what your child missed out on,' which is sent by the teacher instead of the daily recap.
DESIGNING THE FIRST VERSION
How it all started...
For the first version, the features that were to be included were already specified to me by the developers and the director of the organization.
With less than 2 months in hand, I managed to build high fidelity prototypes based off on mock designs that were done by the developers.
Early stage wireframes provided by the developers.
CHALLENGE
The creative limitation.
The director of the company had requested for the logo colors to be included while designing the screens.
Since I was using a lighter shade as the background color, I convinced the director about the better impact that variations of shades amongst the logo colors would have on the background.
The web version of the daily logs and notices features
The mobile version of the daily logs and notices features
UNCOVERING INSIGHTS
Testing it out with the teachers.
Once the designs of the first version were developed and open for use, we tested them out with the teachers before providing the app to the parents.
The director acted as a user representative and conveyed the feedback of the teachers on the application to us.
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The process for creating a log is a little time consuming for the teachers. Is there any way we could reduce the scroll and make the process more rewarding?
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Sagar Irakal,
Founder of Curiouss Kids
The scroll while adding a child's daily log
Based on the feedback, we identified these opportunities to be included in the next version of the application.
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Reduce the number of clicks for navigating between different features by displaying them all in one place.
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Make the viewing of pictures of the students more appealing for the parents on the mobile app.
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Consolidating important tasks for teachers under one overarching feature.
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A feature of tracking the attendance of the student along with indicating the total number of days present at school.
A FRESH START
With a bunch of new ideas, I advocated for a consistent visual look and feel to build an enjoyable 2.0 version of the application.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Deciding the in-app navigation.
Post opportunity identification and a quick GMeet with the director of the company, we made a document containing the must have features and the good-to-have ones. The finalization of features led me to whip up an information architecture for the teacher and parent side application.
STYLE GUIDE
Making the viewing experience more delightful.
Here is the style guide I built by taking inspiration from ethereum.org 's design system and Google Material 3.0's documentation.
TEACHERS' VERSION
The solutions.
Opportunity 1. Reducing the scroll while creating a notice.
Solution
Class-wise notices can be uploaded by teachers in order to notify the parents regarding any submission, school event or a holiday.
Opportunity 2. Keeping the parents updated on the daily schedule.
Solution
This feature enables the teachers to set up a timetable for the parents to view for each day. Parents will be able to view it in their mobile app.
Opportunity 3. Helping the parents feel involved in their child's growth.
Solution
This feature helps maintain transparency between the school and parent while keeping a track of the child's progress.
Opportunity 4. A consolidated view aiding in the teachers' navigation process.
Solution
Teachers can get a view of different elements like working days, the student list as per class and the parent-teachers chat.
PARENTS' VERSION
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The solutions pt.2
Once the teacher fills out the activities that a child has performed during the day, it would be visible to the parent on the mobile app. They can also view the pictures that the teacher clicked of their child during school.
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Notices updated by the teachers will be visible to the parents. Each icon classifies the kind of notice (e.g. assignment, holiday or event)
This chat section facilitates the parents to directly communicate with the teachers regarding any doubts.
POST-DESIGN PHASE
The impact.
01. Timely updates
Parents started to receive updates about their kiddos' day within four-five hours after conclusion of the school day.
02. Going paperless
The preschool was finally able to go paperless by using the application for posting all updates and eliminating the print paper count of 3000.
03. Saving time
Reduced navigation time by eliminating 25 clicks between features, resulting in 40% faster access to key features and enhancing user satisfaction and efficiency.
04. Reduced workload
Teachers reported a 30% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks such as updating parents and organizing events, allowing them to focus more on teaching.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
One more thing.
If this application was not for one school (and if we had more time on our hands) here's what we would have included...
1. Reliable pickup
2. Digitized payment
QR based pickup and drop-off of children to promote safety.
Online fee payment via the mobile application for parents.
3. Learning supplements
Short online quizzes to aid the continuous learning process.
SELF REFLECTION
Learnings.
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Understand and connect with the product deeply before starting the design process.
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Getting to know your colleagues personally (with their consent) helps you understand how they work and why they make certain decisions.
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While designing, try to design in a way that the application can be monetized in the future.
From collaborating on a cool project to discussing the next big thing happening in design, all you need to do is drop me a line.