TKS Communication Portal

YEAR

February 2022

OUR ROLE

UX Research/Design, Prototype, Iteration

RESOURCES

Deck

TKS Communication Portal

The Kilmore School (TKS) is a fictional school based on the needs of an actual all-boys boarding school. There are many moving parts to make a boarding school work smoothly. Communication is imperative. The TKS Communication Portal is a desktop and mobile solution to ease the communication pains of TKS.

What to Solve

Project Overview

The Problem

TKS includes many professionals working together to make each day flow smoothly. The following staff have to communicate effortlessly, but not all staff needs to receive all communication:

Educational administrators
Teachers and assistants
Mental and occupational therapists
Clinical administrators
Residential administrators
Residential staff
Headmaster and Assistant Headmaster
Headmaster and Assistant Headmaster
Parents

TKS includes many professionals working together to make each day flow smoothly. The following staff have to communicate effortlessly, but not all staff needs to receive all communication:

The Goal

A solution was needed to streamline communication, provide adjustable permissions for viewing, and a modular design to accommodate growth.

Roles and Responsibilities

Execution

My Role

UX designer designing an app for TKS Communication Portal from conception to delivery.

Responsibilities

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

The User

I conducted interviews with four staff members and a parent.

PERSONA 1

SaraHeadshot — Sara (43 yo)

Sara is the Assistant Headmaster. She manages communication between parents, the residential staff, and the educational staff while balancing system creation and various administrative duties. Her list of responsibilities is endless and ever-changing. She would love a one-stop communication platform that organizes multiple conversations. "I feel as if I'm constantly tied to my email, often having to keep things organized in my head."

PERSONA 2

Mitch (54 yo)

Mitch is a parent. He works long hours as a financial advisor and as a stockbroker. He often feels bombarded with multiple emails from the school while managing work emails throughout the day. Mitch would love to minimize communication or log into a system to keep current with updates from the school. "I wish I could clone myself, but I'm unable to keep up with all of the emails and feel as if I miss some of the details."

PERSONA 3

Robyn (27 yo)

Robyn is a teacher and manages some printed and online marketing materials, such as the yearbook. Throughout the year, she receives multiple emails, including various photos of the children to include in the yearbook. While Robyn appreciates everyone taking pictures, she is overwhelmed with the emails. As a teacher, she has many responsibilities. The abundance of emails makes it difficult to keep track of the photos and her other duties. "So many emails, so little time."

User Research

Pain Points

Time

Parents and staff are overwhelmed with time-consuming emails. Parents are concerned they'll miss the details, and the staff have difficulty keeping up with all of the details.

Several Simultaneous Conversations

The administrative staff expressed concern about follow-through. As an administrator, it's challenging to maintain several conversations and ensure that the staff complete their jobs, be current with new updates, and submit forms and other job responsibilities on time.

Marketing

One teacher and other marketing staff must organize and manage photos from everyone on the campus. By everyone having the ability to catch candid moments, natural highlights are captured each day on the school campus. However, sending these images by email and not having universal media storage makes it difficult to manage post-production.

The Design

From paper to reality.

The Design

Sitemap

The following two aspects made the TKS Communication Portal complicated:

Need to easily add more pages based on the growth and responsibilities within the school.
Ability to give viewing permissions. For example, a teacher doesn't need access to a parent's financial account, and the parent doesn't need to view some of the teachers' pages.

A sitemap was imperative for this project to understand the daily flow of communication.

The Design

Paper Wireframes

Many paper wireframes were drafted while considering a modular design. I designed a navigation menu that would change if more pages were added to the site’s front end. I also drafted mobile versions of the site to make it easy for the TKS staff to view and use the communication portal on phones.

The Design

Digital Wireframes

Once the paper wireframes were finalized, it was time to go digital. Elements from each of the paper wireframes were made digital by using Adobe XD. I created desktop and mobile versions of the TKS Communication Portal.

The Design

Low-Fidelity Prototypes

After completing the digital wireframes, I created the low-fidelity desktop and mobile prototypes in Adobe XD. The primary goal was to make it easy for the users to view data and communication in one place to eliminate the increased use of email.

Lo-Fi Prototype (Desktop)

The Design

Usability Study

Two unmoderated usability studies were conducted with four staff and one parent to fine-tune the design. The first round of usability studies indicated areas that needed to be addressed to create a smooth user experience. The second round of studies indicated two new features that would improve the experience of using the Rev Fitness App.

ROUND 1 FINDINGS

Users were unsure if the "x" icon meant to close a document or delete.

Users were confused by the back button to access the mobile menu. The simple change of replacing the back button with a hamburger menu eliminated the confusion.

Users wanted to link back to therefore profile after clicking the logo at the top of the menu.

ROUND 2 FINDINGS

The TKS Administrative staff wanted a solution to remind accessory staff to completed required forms in a timely way.

The TKS Administrative staff were interested in the ability to add bank information to automate the payment process from the parents.

The Design

Competitive Analysis

I reviewed several direct and indirect competitors that would serve as a communication portal for TKS. The gaps were identified, and the following opportunities were more apparent:

Incorporate the ability for customization. TKS is constantly growing; therefore, adding more sections and pages is imperative.
Design a solution to control what site pages are seen by whom. Incorporate permissions to view specific sections of the site.
Incorporate the ability for automatic reminders to fill out staff forms.

Refining

After the usability studies, it’s time to create a final product. Mockups were converted into high-fidelity prototypes.

Refining

Hi-Fi Prototypes > "Remind Feature"

Following more research, I learned that the administrative staff desired the ability to automatically remind accessory staff to fill out sent forms in a timely manner.

Refining

Hi-Fi Prototypes > "Bank Feature"

More research indicated that the Administrative staff desired the ability for the parents and staff to add bank account information for payments.

Refining

The Finale

The final high-fidelity desktop and the mobile prototype were created after adding the new features.

Hi-Fi Prototype (Desktop)

Hi-Fi Prototype (Mobile)

Refining

Accessibility

Vision

The design included high contrast to assist individuals with low contrast sensitivity. The designs also avoided color combinations that could be hard to distinguish.

Touch

Icons with text and a significant amount of padding were included to make it easy to use the icon's functionality. In addition, different finger sizes and those with impaired fine motor skills were considered during the design.

Conclusion

TKS’s goal is to provide children with special needs diagnoses the ability to learn academics and become proficient in social interaction and behavioral management. A communication platform was needed to streamline campus-wide interaction for the staff to stay connected and have the mental energy to help the kids. It has been a pleasure designing a desktop and mobile modular design that will grow with TKS. Future designs and research could include a backend administrative portal and interactive checklists for staff.

Backend Administrative Portal

The current design relies on a developer to add future pages and control viewing privileges. An administrative portal would give the TKS staff the ability to add future pages without the dependency of a developer.

Interactive Checklists

The TKS staff desire the ability to streamline daily procedures. Interactive checklists or to-do lists would reduce errors when following through with specific day-to-day operations.