Duration and Others
My Role
Researcher
Presenter
Visual Design Lead
Prototyping & Testing
Why Best School?
We do the work for you.
Parents are struggling to find suitable schools for their children that align with their educational and social preferences. Search engines are the primary source for discovering schools, followed by school database platforms. Other than a few leading competitors, the options for helpful and intuitive mobile and desktop products are limited. There are enough school search engines, but the data itself isn’t being presented in a way that is easily digestible or helpful to the user.
Validating the Problem
We began our research by analyzing several interview transcripts of parents being asked about the process of selecting a private school for their child. The interviews varied in people’s needs and approaches to searching for schools, but ultimately choosing the school their child ended up attending was more based on emotion rather than facts. To gain a deeper understanding of the marketplace we reviewed Census Bureau statistics on private verses public school enrollment trends over the past 5 years and researched competitors.
Research & Protoyping
60% of children grades K-12 and 76% of high school children are a part of the conversation when it comes to their educational future.
Public school enrollment dropped during the pandemic from 49 to 48 million.
Private school enrollment rose nearly 1 million from 2020 to 2021.
From the research gathered, affinity mapping, empathy mapping, user flows, and a competitor analysis were created and analyzed.
Insights drawn from these efforts informed the creation of mid-fidelity wire-framing. During usability testing, participants were asked to complete three main task flows. From the findings, revisions were made.
Mid fidelity prototype - create user profile
High fidelity prototype - create user profile
Solutions and Results
Features & Functions
Best School is a platform for families to discover and compare schools and programs that align with their educational goals and values. The account holder sets up profiles by answering seven questions about their child’s preferences. One this is done, Best School sends a list of the top schools that match their selections. This list can be easily duplicated and refined. Users can conduct their own searches based on specific criteria and organize their findings. Stats, found in the account users profile, track your schools searched, visited, applications.
Our profile feature streamlines and personalizes the school search process, saving the user time and energy. It gives parents the best options with the data received. The more accurate the data, the more accurate the results. This list can also serve as a guidance and a starting to point for users that may be overwhelmed by the process.
User stats serves as an overview to quickly keep the user up to date and on top of the school search process. Stats feature student profiles, schools searched, application process, and schools visited.
