Modernising attendance taking for enhanced efficiency and engagement.
UX/UI Design • User Research • Prototyping • Usability Testing
The Society of Starfish empowers out-of-school youths by providing them a second chance at education, enabling them to unlock their full potential and pursue brighter futures. They are fully operated by volunteers.
• UX Design
• UI Design
• User research
• Prototyping
• Usability
testing
• Figma
• Figjam
• Notion
• Google Workspace
May - Oct 2023
• 1 Product Manager
• 2 UX Designers
• 2 Developers
For full-time teachers, balancing administrative duties alongside teaching is already a significant challenge. Here, at the Society of Starfish, run entirely by volunteer teachers who also hold external jobs, the burden of manual attendance-taking processes presents a constant struggle. This not only diminishes valuable teaching time but also exacerbates the weight of administrative tasks, hindering the overall educational experience.
Redundant effort in maintaining both physical and digital databases and difficulty tracking trends over time.
Limited real-time data and ineffective communication, leading to delays in student support.
Administrative overhead impedes teacher productivity and the seamless flow of classroom activities.
I interviewed all 5 teacher volunteers to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and identify features that would be valuable in their teaching journey.
" Students often come in halfway through the class, so either we disrupt the class and take the attendance or do it later on, but we might forget."
“ It is a very tedious process to follow up with absentees, because for each one, there are 3 points of contact that we need to follow up with.”
“ Students need to meet 75% attendance each term, and it is very tedious to manually transfer and tabulate this at the end of each term."
How Might We
Student monitoring
Allowing teachers to instantly identify absentees and providing real-time updates for streamlined classroom management.
Student tracking
Effortlessly track student attendance rates and generate customised reports tailored to specific needs and use cases.
Communication
Seamlessly integrate APIs enabling teachers to connect with student groups, social workers, or parents as per unique requirements.
Transformative design solution
Our initial goal was to relieve teachers of administrative burdens, but through strategic design solutions, we not only addressed the original problem but also created lasting value that positively impacted their educational experience.
Reduced time on task
Teachers reported a significant reduction in the time spent on attendance tracking, allowing for increased focus on teaching and student engagement.
Improved communication
Real-time updates and automated reports facilitated better communication with social workers, parents, and other stakeholders.
Based on the user interviews, I created a user persona to represent the teachers.
A journey map is created to visualise user experience, identify opportunities, and to create a shared understanding on what the current problem is.
After understanding the needs and wants of the teachers,. I prioritised the P1: Must-Have features that will have the largest user impact with the least effort required.
I then mapped out the user flows to indicate how teachers would accomplish each task.
With these, I began working on my sketches and ideation. I noted down the key points and gathered initial feedback on the layout and direction.
At this stage, I did two rounds of testing to make sure my mid-fidelity designs were on point before moving into high-fidelity prototypes. I explored multiple variations of each page to see which interaction styles and user interfaces felt most natural and user-friendly.
Testing 1.0
Teachers preferred Design B as it allowed them to quickly scan important information. Additionally, they favoured labeled buttons as they found them to be a clearer and more straightforward option for engaging with the interface.
Testing 2.0
.png)
After settling down with the design variations, I did another round of usability testing and interviews to determine their experience of completing 5 task. The testing involved five task flows, 1) attendance taking; 2) contacting latecomers and absentees; 3) editing student records; 4) editing attendance records; and 5) exporting attendance records.
Although there were a few areas for improvement, the overall feedback were positive with 100% completion rate for all 5 tasks. Example changes were to add a search function and filter criteria for improved data management experience.
* Some information and designs are not disclosed in this case study.
Streamlined workflow
Our solution significantly alleviated the administrative load on teachers by eliminating redundant data entry, manual data compilation, and enabling instant generation of reports with a simple click.
Enhanced student engagement
By minimising classroom distractions and enabling teachers to focus on teaching, this fostered a higher level of student engagement by creating a more productive learning environment.
Optimised communication
The integration of automated reminders and personalised communications streamlined workflow efficiencies for teachers, reducing the need for tedious manual tasks and enhancing overall communication effectiveness.
Warming up ...
