Summary

The problem

Skoolaide users have their goals approved, then their parents buy them a gift from amazon if they hit their goal. Skoolaide’s product development was stalled and they were having trouble gaining traction with academic institutions that they were aiming to sell to. After a product audit it became clear the user experience was unnecessarily complicated and that product adoption was challenged by the current business model.

Key Activities

the solution

Redefined the customer then did a process redesign then began refreshing the UI. I was hired to simply refresh the interface design, but as I got to know the business I saw many opportunities for strategic improvements. I shifted my focus to ensuring the business model, financial model and target customer were correct. As a result, Skoolaide now targets teachers directly instead of school boards and offers a more inclusive and accessible product which allows them to more effectively fulfill their vision of guiding and aiding student success.

Exploratory interviews

I interviewed existing customers, teachers, parents and students to discover their current experience with school. I did these interviews over the phone or video call because all interviewees are located in the United States.

Key Insights

Teachers

Less experienced teachers need help creating lesson plans
Teachers decide what technology to use in their classroom
Teachers receive no funding for additional learning tools
If parents checked online grade and message posting from teachers, there would be less complaints to manage
Need to save time. Often have families of their own at home
Want to understand different student’s learning styles
When teachers have a “united front”, are communicating and working together, students perform better. This gets lost in High School
Many teachers tutor outside of school for extra money
Have to be careful now with competition in class. It is no longer ok to create leaderboards with student names or place individual students in head to head challenges
Students
Want to know “How is what I am learning going to help me later?”
Like being able to brag about winning
Like being rewarded for winning
Hard to focus on class for a long time
“snapchat is dead, everything is on instagram”
Often have questions but are nervous to ask in class
Anxious about getting bad grades because of parents
Don’t understand fully how their behaviour in school affects their future

Persona definition

Skoolaide had a general idea of who their users and customers were, but had not developed artifacts to promote organizational consensus and alignment.

Complete Market Analysis

I dug into the competitive landscape. First, I interviewed the CEO of Skoolaide to learn what he knew about his competition. In addition to his insights I discovered a group of companies with very similar offerings to Skoolaide. One that is nearly identical. I compared what they offered and revealed openings to create a competitive advantage.

Conduct Product audit

I conducted remote usability tests with current Skoolaide users.

Findings

Takes a long time for the student to receive their reward (delayed gratification, distances Skoolaide’s brand from being central in the winning moment)

Rewards require parents to pay for them, this is not accessible for under resourced families
Students require a parent or teacher to approve goals and grades, which creates effort and delay for the student user
Students need to upload copies of their report card to Skoolaide
Too much back-and-forth between analog and digital world
The current customer, school boards, are slow moving with tight budgets

customer re-definition

Originally, Skoolaide entered schools through district school boards. This institution’s very slow deal cycles and shallow resource pool created tremendous sales uncertainty for Skoolaide.

My interviews showed that teachers are the gatekeepers for what technology is used in their classroom. As per the key insights, I saw an opportunity to create a lesson plan sharing portal inside of Skoolaide which would solve a major pain point for teachers and create an easier entry point into the school system. I developed a product solution that enabled teachers to post, share and access lesson plans. This makes life easier for teachers which helps Skoolaide get into their schools without official board approval.

The vision is to reverse the strategy for getting Skoolaide into schools. Instead of selling to school boards and hoping they give Skoolaide to the teachers, we will create value for teachers that they cannot live without and eventually school boards will have to pay attention.

Business strategy revision

The back and forth between the digital and analog world took students out of the app for long periods of time, too often. The primary positive experience, receiving your hard earned reward, happens external to the app because prizes are ordered on Amazon.

I advised transitioning from one big reward for hitting your final grade goal to small, more frequent digital rewards so the gratification is instant, often, and this positive experience occurs within the Skoolaide app.

Going digital makes Skoolaide easier to share on social media. More regular reward moments inside of Skoolaide experience can be easily translated into social shares and recommendations. As students observe their peers earning rewards for doing well in school, we believe this would create a viral wave of students and teachers wanting Skoolaide.

Financial modelling

Going digital opens the possibility for partnership deals with digital brands trying to reach High School students. For example, students may earn rewards like a free Starbucks coffee, free Udemy course, or discount to the app store.

By partnering with brands providing rewards for students, pressure comes off of parents to pay for prizes.

Enhanced Gamification

Established Points System

Points enable more frequent “rewards”
Earn points for studying, succeeding on tests, and other desired behaviour

Gamified Onboarding

Create engaging onboarding experience with points being earned to help collect vital student information. Students begin their experience with a positive balance of points
Create the rush of earning rewards with Skoolaide from the beginning

Educational Pathway

Visualize the students educational pathway with milestones and opportunities to earn more or multiply existing points along the way

Financial Literacy

Treat points bank like a bank account. Allow students to save, spend, invest points and teach them basic money management through their points dashboard

Machine learning integration

Implementing machine learning with the ability to learn what content a student is struggling with, when they need more support, or are ready to move on will allow Skoolaide to customize the learning experience for students to achieve better academic results.

Skoolaide will show students learning material at their pace, with lessons and tips for when they are struggling. Skoolaide will get this information from the lesson plan creation feature for teachers.

For goal setting, Skoolaide will learn what a student is capable of and suggest appropriate goals that fit a students ability.

Ultimately, Skoolaide should be able to learn how to guide a student through an entire subject based on that students needs and the sum of available lesson plans and learning materials.

increased competitive advantage

Machine learning IP
Lesson plan data
Bypass school boards
Custom learning path
Gamified student experience
Financial literacy training