Home schooling Slovakia - inspiration

Designed as a part of Google's UX Design certificate

Project overview

The product

Inspiration for homeschooling parents – app and responsive website.

Project duration

March 2022 – April 2022

The problem

The part Inspiration (Inšpirácia) for homeschooling parents of the web Homeschooling Slovakia (Non Profit Organization) does not offer any searching possibilities. Therefore the resources are poorly organized and very hard to find for parents.

The goal

Design a search page for parents to find homeschooling resources from the web domacaskola.sk – Inspiration easily, based on several criterias.

My role

UX designer for Homeschooling Slovakia Inspiration from the beginning to delivery.

My responsibilities

  • Conducting interviews
  • paper and digital wireframing
  • low and high-fidelity prototyping
  • conducting usability studies
  • accounting for accessibility
  • iterating on designs.

Understanding the user

Summary

Conducted 4 interviews with homeschooling mothers.

Assumptions

  1. Parents want to be able to search teaching resources by keyword, year, subject.
  2. There is no major difference between the use of mobiles and desktop computers/notebooks.

 

Outcome

  1. TRUE, but some parents wish to search also by type of document.
  2. FALSE. Some parents use only computers for browsing. Others use smartphone to find articles and computer to read them thoroughly later.

User pain points

1

No possibility to search based on several criteria – implemented.

2

Texts on mobile screens too small – implemented.

3

Long texts, too few images – implemented.

4

Do not know what to expect on yearly exams – not possible to implement due to the organization’s restrictions.

5

People looking strangely at us because of homeschooling – Help forum – planned.

Personas & user statements

User journey map

Starting the design

Paper wireframes

Crazy eights

More sketches

Digital wireframes - dedicated mobile app (adobe xd)

Usability study - Parameters & Findings

  • un-moderated usability study
  • 5 participants
  • Slovkia (remote)
  • 10 mins duration

Graphics (p0)

Users were distrurbed by graphical mistake in scrolling on homepage.

Text & icons (p1)

Users prefer to have both text and icons next to search and filter fields on the screen.

icons (P1)

Users prefer to have a single icon – Search & Filter, instead of two icons.

 

Refining the design

Implemantaion of usability studies

1. “Filter articles” and “Search articles” were unified into → “Search & filter

2. Icons for “Filter” and “Search” were added

Accessibility considerations

1

Clear hierarchy on each page, suitable for screen readers.

2

Color combinations confirming to the WCAG AAA standard.

3

Initial focus of the home screen on personalized recommendations help define the primary task or action for the user.

HiFi Prototypes - Screen Variations (click images to test)

Dedicated Mobile App
Mobile
Tablet
Desktop

Going forward

Takeaways

Impact

Quotes from future users:
“I hope this will soon be implemented”
“Intuitive and easy to use”

What I have learned

  1. I prefer designing from top to bottom (vs. bottom to top)
  2. User testing always brings up issues I have not thought of

Next steps

1

Since I am also a web developer – I plan to program this web page.

2

Incorporate the type of material (article, test,…) into the search.

3

Add “User preferences” into “User profile”.

 

4

Design a page for homeschooling support group(s).