Digital attendance solution for seamless student tracking and communication

My Role

In the end-to-end project to digitize the school attendance process, I was one of two designers driving the solution. From the outset, I immersed myself in user research and conducted stakeholder interviews to uncover critical pain points and understand the unique challenges faced by teachers and administrative volunteers. With this deep insight, I led the design process, conceptualizing and prototyping intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces that streamlined attendance tracking. The goal was to simplify complex workflows, improve data accuracy, and ensure seamless integration with existing school systems.

Through continuous iterations, testing, and incorporating user feedback, I refined the design to create an impactful, user-centric solution that improved operational efficiency and gave users the confidence and ease they needed. This project not only enhanced attendance management but also transformed the way teachers and volunteers interacted with the system, making their daily tasks more efficient and effective.

Scope

•UX Design •UI Design •User research •Prototyping •Usability testing •End-to-end

Team

•1 Product Manager •2 UX Designers •2 Developers

Tools

•Figma •Figjam •Notion •Google Workspace

Time Frame

June - Aug 2023

Overview

The Society of Starfish is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering out-of-school youths by offering them a second chance at education. They provide free tuition programs for youths who have been displaced from formal education for various reasons, helping them unlock their full potential and pursue brighter futures. Operated entirely by volunteers, the organization relies on community support to fulfil its mission.

The Problem

Struggling to balance teaching and administrative duties

For full-time educators, balancing teaching with administrative tasks is already a significant challenge. At the Society of Starfish, where volunteer teachers juggle external jobs alongside their teaching responsibilities, the manual attendance-taking process added unnecessary strain. This not only took valuable time away from teaching but also increased the administrative workload, ultimately detracting from the quality of the educational experience.

Key challenges faced by teachers included:

Redundant Effort: Managing both physical and digital attendance records created unnecessary duplication, making it difficult to track trends or get an accurate overview of student attendance over time.
Delayed Support: Without access to real-time data and effective communication tools, teachers struggled to address student needs promptly, leading to delayed support.
Disrupted Productivity: The time spent on administrative tasks such as attendance logging disrupted the flow of classroom activities and hindered teachers' ability to focus on their core mission—teaching.

Diving deeper on why this is happening?

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.

100% talks about how the current processes disrupt normal classroom activities.

100% had difficulties in compiling data for tracking and generating reports.

80% found it challenging to follow up with absentees, latecomers, and other stakeholders.

" 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." - Shafi, 32, Teacher volunteer

“ 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.” - Kamale, 27, Teaching coordinator

“ 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." - Aqila, 33, Teacher volunteer

The Solution

Empowering Educators: A Digital Solution for Effortless Attendance and Communication

Recognizing the strain placed on teachers, I designed a digital attendance solution that transformed the way educators manage student tracking and communication—freeing up valuable teaching time and reducing administrative overload.

Instant Student monitoring
Teachers could now instantly identify absentees and receive real-time updates, allowing them to stay on top of classroom management effortlessly, and no more scrambling through paper logs.
Effortless Student tracking
The solution simplified attendance tracking with an intuitive system that generated customized reports. Teachers could now easily track student attendance rates, generate insights, and use the data to make informed decisions—tailored specifically to their needs and the unique challenges of each student.
Streamliend Communication
API integration allowed teachers to easily connect with students, parents, and social workers. This ensures that everyone involved in a student’s journey was aligned and on the same page.

The Impact

Our goal was to ease the administrative load on teachers, but through thoughtful design, we created a solution that went beyond expectations, delivering lasting value that improved the entire teaching experience.

Transformative design solution
What began as a solution to reduce administrative tasks quickly became a tool that not only alleviated the workload but also streamlined classroom operations. By simplifying attendance tracking and reporting, teachers were able to focus more on individualized student engagement, creating a more impactful learning environment.
More Time for Teaching
With the time-consuming task of manual attendance removed, teachers found themselves with more time to engage with students, plan lessons, and focus on classroom teaching.
Communication
Real-time updates and automated reports strengthened communication with social workers, parents, and other stakeholders, fostering a more collaborative, effective learning environment.

The Process - How did this happen?

Who am I designing it for?

Drawing from user interviews, I synthesized key insights and developed a detailed user persona that accurately represented the teachers’ needs, behaviors, and challenges. This persona became a central touchstone throughout the design process, guiding decisions on features, usability, and overall experience.

Journey map

Mapping the volunteer teaching experience revealed several challenges. Volunteers struggled with manual tasks like printing and filing attendance sheets, often missing latecomers or causing class disruptions. With limited staff, it became chaotic, and tracking absentees or transferring data into digital systems was time-consuming and prone to errors.
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These insights opened up opportunities to design a more seamless digital attendance-taking experience and reduce classroom disruptions. A centralized platform would streamline data access and transfer, allowing them to track trends over time, while automated absentee notifications would ensure timely follow-ups with parents and social workers. This approach would save time, reduce errors, and allow teacher volunteers to focus more on teaching.

Feature prioritisation

After understanding the needs and challenges of the teachers, we prioritized the P1: Must-Have features that would deliver the most significant user impact with minimal development effort. By focusing on these key features, we ensured that the solution would address critical pain points efficiently, allowing teachers to experience immediate improvements in their workflow.

User flow

Next, I mapped out the user flows to clearly visualize how teachers would accomplish each task within the system. This helped identify the most intuitive and efficient paths for them to follow.

Task flows to take attendance, update attendance, add and edit student records, export data, and contact absentees.

Early concepts

With these insights in hand, I began sketching and ideating possible solutions. I focused on the key points identified earlier and created initial layouts to visualize the direction. Gathering early feedback from stakeholders allowed me to refine the design, ensuring it aligned with both user needs and project goals.

Usability Testing

At this stage, we conducted two rounds of testing to ensure the mid-fidelity designs were aligned with user expectations before progressing to high-fidelity prototypes. We explored different variations of each page, experimenting with various interaction styles and user interfaces to determine which felt the most intuitive and user-friendly.
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Testing 1.0‍

Two types of design for student detail page

Teachers preferred Design B as it allowed them to quickly scan important information. They also favored labeled buttons, finding them to be a clearer and more straightforward option for interacting with the interface.
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Testing 2.0‍

Version 1 and 2. Version two added search function and increased filter criteria

Once the design variations were finalized, we conducted another round of usability testing and interviews to evaluate the user experience across five key task flows: 1) taking attendance, 2) reaching out to latecomers and absentees, 3) editing student records, 4) updating attendance records, and 5) exporting attendance data.

While there were a few areas for refinement, the overall response was positive. Users successfully completed 100% of the tasks, demonstrating that the design was intuitive and met their needs. One of the key improvements that emerged was the addition of a search function and filter criteria, which would make managing data much smoother.

This phase of testing helped validate our design choices, ensuring the final solution would truly make a difference in the teachers' daily workflow.
_{* Only a few key screens are shown—no need to overwhelm you with a digital jungle! :)}

Final designs

In summary ...

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.
Optimised communication
The integration of automated reminders and personalised communications further streamlined workflows, reducing the need for tedious manual tasks and enhancing overall communication efficiency. This ultimately contributed to smoother classroom management and more effective teacher-student-guardian interactions.
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.

If I had more time...

Develop additional training resources, such as video tutorials or user guides,to assist new volunteer teachers in quickly adapting to the digital attendance solution. This can be especially helpful for onboarding new volunteers.
Establish a feedback loop with volunteer teachers to gather ongoing insights into their experiences with the digital attendance solution. This can be used to identify gaps and insights into their evolving experiences, allowing for continuous refinement.

Learnings

Holistic Problem Solving: While the initial focus was on alleviating administrative tasks, we uncovered unexpected benefits, showcasing the importance of considering the broader impact of design solutions. This shows the significance of addressing multifaceted user needs to create more comprehensive and impactful solutions.
Scaleability considerations: As time progresses, scaleability becomes a crucial consideration. So we needed to evaluate the infrastructure and architecture to ensure the solution can accommodate an increasing number of users and data points without compromising performance.

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