Client: Coppell Independent School District
Role: UX/UI
Devices: iPhone

Challenge

The Apple + IBM program partnered with the IBM Watson Education division to design a suite of apps that would be deployed in K-12 school districts across the country. These apps would serve the different roles in the educational ecosystem: teachers, students, administrators and parents.  

As a complementary app to Watson Element (an app for teachers to manage their students and classrooms), we were tasked with designing Watson Admin. This app would address major pain points for school administrators in assessing school and classroom performance at a higher level. No day is ever the same for principals and they often have to respond to a myriad of challenges ranging from maintenance, attendance issues and student behavioral problems to school funding, performance and teacher empowerment.

Since administrators are rarely at their desks and can be in multiple places throughout the day, they needed a way to tackle tasks while on-the-go without being tethered. 

Process

We began the project with some cross-over knowledge from the Watson Element app design and development process. Since that app is for teachers and indirectly affects school administrators, we had some insight into their high-level pain points.

Originally, the request was for an iPad app but the more we heard how the users worked and how the only thing they ever carried to check emails, send appointments, etc. was their phone, we made a recommendation to not disrupt their current workflow and design an iPhone app instead.  

During the workshop, we dug deeper into their pain points and current workflow and created a Golden Thread that highlighted the optimal experience. After refining and learning more about what truly mattered to the administrators, we jumped into whiteboard sketches of a few screens to vet assumptions with the users. 

Once we vetted basic features on the whiteboard sketches, we began designing a few screens that set the tone of the app. We followed iOS guidelines and Apple Human Interface Guidelines closely. Other visual design decisions were based on research, color palette defined by Watson Element, future branding considerations for each school district, etc.

We walked away from the workshop with a few key screens that were the foundation of the app. We then began designing the screens that were pertinent to the different user stories. After the fourth week, development began and we worked closely with developers in making sure the app was true to the user’s needs and aligned with our design.

We worked 1-2 sprints ahead of the developers to ensure they had approved designs for development. That also gave us time to review with the client and iterate quickly without wasting time.

Results

The Apple + IBM partnership was committed to pushing education forward through the implementation of technological solutions that empowered parents, students, teachers and administrators. 

Watson Admin gives school administrators a high-level view of student and teacher engagement, classroom key performance indicators, teacher information through tailored profiles, absence trends, quick student profile views and rich notifications. 

Watson Admin was designed to work with Watson Element so each app taps into the same back-end database whenever it’s applicable. This allows for school administrators to have better insight into each teacher’s classroom view at a higher level. This holistic approach enables teachers and administrators to provide a higher quality of education in the classroom and better understanding of school performance.

Press Coverage

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2016/10/19/coppell-isd-becomes-first-district-to-use-ibm.html