Visualizing Student Data for School Administrators
UX Researcher and Designer
4 weeks
Practice Makes Perfect
Sketch, Invision, Axure, Keynote
Role
Date
Client
Tools
THE CHALLENGE
Practice Makes Perfect (PMP) is a for-profit corporation that partners with schools in order to create intensive tutoring and summer enrichment programs for inner-city youth to narrow the achievement gap in low-income areas in New York City. At the time we worked with them, PMP was partnered with 44 schools, with 90 tutors serving over 5,000 students and was planning to expand. PMP brought in our UX team to design an interface for their administrators (admins) to collect, organize, analyze, and package this data for their schools because they found the current process frustrating.
RESEARCH
RESEARCH
The Current Process
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The tutors collect student data with pencil and paper either during or after their tutoring session, giving each student a grade of 1, 2, 3, or 4 for 3 metrics; attentiveness, task completion, and comprehension and add notes.
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The administrator inputs the data in a google sheet, analyzes it and records any trends or recommendations.
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Finally, the administrator creates a report which is then sent in an email to the school.
1. Paper Data Collection
2. Admin Google Sheet
3. PDF Emailed to Schools
We interviewed 5 PMP administrators and 7 tutors.
Frustrations
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Difficult to read the student data and notes
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Time wasted having to create a new report for each school.
Opportunities​
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Visualize the student data
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Easily send customizable reports to the schools PMP partners with.
Brainstorming
We brainstormed a wide variety of solutions for an interface that would allow PMP administrators to complete the 5 tasks mentioned above.
Concepts
We chose 3 designs to test with PMP.
Rotating Card Concept
At-Risk Identifier
Dashboard Concept
DISCOVERIES
Dashboard Concept
PMP liked the Dashboard Concept because:
​Had multiple ways to visualize the data
Used color to show student progress
​Allowed admins to easily send customized reports.
The notes were categorized by academic or behavioral
Use Color to Show Student Progress
Strategic color to indicate student performance helps users quickly visualize student data.
Concept
Final Wireframe
Iterations
Allow Admins to Easily Send Customized Reports
Locating the customization options right next to the send report button allows the user to send out customized reports easily and frequently.
Concept
Final Wireframe
SOLUTION
In our final handoff, our team provided Practice Makes Perfect with the design for a digital solution to collect, organize, analyze, and package the data for the schools that they partnered with.
3 Ways to Visualize the Data
Spreadsheet
Line Graph
Bar Graph
PMP administrators liked being able to see data in different ways depending on their use case. These 3 different ways to visualize the data allows the PMP administrators to manipulate the data in a way that is most useful for them.
Prototype
Use this interactive prototype to explore our final solution. Click on P.S. 126 to get started.
BONUS! Iteration on Previous UX Team's App for Data Entry
Our UX team was the second UX team to work with Practice Makes Perfect on the problem of streamlining the input of student data. The first UX team focused on creating an app for tutors to enter data into, while our main goal was to create the administrator interface that the data would be displayed on once it was collected. PMP asked our UX team to iterate on the previous teams' work if we had time. Through our interviews with tutors, we learned a sufficient amount about the problems that the tutors had with the collection of student data and decided to iterate on the previous team's work in addition to the interface.
Tutor frustrations:
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Only given 15 minutes at the end of the day to input data for all the students they saw that day
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Scoring the students on each metric subjectively because there was no standard difference between each score
Solution:
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Changing the structure of inputting data from inputting all the metrics for 1 student at a time to inputting data for all the students 1 metric at a time.
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Including a rubric to guide the interventionist on how they should be scoring their students.
Previous UI Team
Final Wireframes
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Practice Makes Perfect now has a version of their administrator interface that they can take to developers. When this project is brought to life, PMP administrators won't have to waste time entering and analyzing student data but will instead be able to focus on developing and expanding their company as a whole.
Thank you for reading my case study!