Redesigning a k-12 assessment analysis engine
Redesigning a k-12 assessment
analysis engine
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
The Approach
Our first goal was to establish parity with current Aware.
We started with the information architecture of the platform, with the goal of implementing a simplified navigational structure that provided clarity by better matching user mental model and eliminating friction to complete customers’ primary jobs-to-done.
It was important to understand what exactly was in the product - what provided value and what didn’t. To do so, I partnered with our head of training to audit the current functionality. We learned there was a lot of redundancy in functionality and a few features that customers simply don’t use. We were set up for many quick wins. I also learned that that some very interesting interaction design choices were made i.e. triple-clicking menu items to expand associated information in some cases.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
The Opportunity
Aware is Eduphoria’s flagship product. It’s an assessment analysis engine used by ~700,000 people in k-12 school districts primarily in Texas. Aware is an immensely powerful tool, but over its 15 year existence, a lack of user research, systems-thinking, and human-centered design, in general, compounded to result in a bloated experience with unintuitive interactions, outdated visual conventions and certain features that, simply put, did not provide customer value. All of this, in context of Eduphoria’s goal to expand to new markets in the near-term sparked a complete overhaul of the product, creating a new foundation that would allow us to build on top of it sustainably, setting the company up for long-term growth.
Through user feedback and market analysis it was clear that Aware needed to be revamped to enhance usability, focus on our customers’ jobs to be done, and bring its visual identity to modern standards.
I worked with my product manager and front-end lead to strategize the next few cycles of work, prioritizing outcomes and getting an idea of what we'd do, when.
Visually, we used a stopgap solution - a beta palette - while collaborating on our brand refresh with an external agency. We will be implementing a visual experience that is consistent with our brand later this year.
Quick Views: The Main Value-Driver of Aware
The primary job customers use Aware for is analyzing assessment(s) data through different lenses. Teachers and administrators are able to pivot the data based on different criteria i.e. ethnicity, special education status, grade, etc. The functionality is called “Quick Views."
Despite it being the highest value task for users, accessing a quick view took too long. Users had to navigate multiple layers of a multi-layered tree navigation menu. In talking with our internal SMEs and customers, we learned that the large majority of time, users primarily visit the same 3-5 views. We redesigned the quick view flow to reflect that. Users are able to designate favorite views, bringing what they need most of the time to the highest level of visibility.
This was a huge improvement to the existing flow - including I also sought to simplify the navigation by housing quick views, under the umbrella of data views, which also contains saved views. I then evaluated this solution with a handful of customers. It was well received. This was a great exercise in stakeholder alignment and communication - our CSO was not convinced about the new design, specifically not having quick views as its own navigation item. Once we went through the documented research findings, he was on board. At this point, I looped in our customer success team to design an onboarding campaign with the tool we use, UserPilot to ensure that customers were aware of change in information architecture, why we made it, and the value it brings.
Results
Aware continues to be the biggest earner for Eduphoria, accounting for more than half of annual revenue.
The implementation of new information architecture and additional analysis features led to a 17% increase in product sales year-over-year.
Through this project I - along with the design team - forged a closer working relationship with customer success and support, which has proved to be extremely valuable for us in ensuring that we’re building valuable, usable, and desirable things.
Before I joined, Eduphoria had never tested designs with users, just internal folks. Through this project, the team was exposed to the immense value of shortening assumption cycles through user testing with customers. I was proud to be able to lead that culture-shit for the product org.
There is still work to be done within Aware as we prepare to sell to out-of-state - namely, figuring out how best to accommodate specific regulatory and/or compliance needs of assessment practices in new markets.
The Approach
Our first goal was to establish parity with current Aware.
We started with the information architecture of the platform, with the goal of implementing a simplified navigational structure that provided clarity by better matching user mental model and eliminating friction to complete customers’ primary jobs-to-done.
It was important to understand what exactly was in the product - what provided value and what didn’t. To do so, I partnered with our head of training to audit the current functionality. We learned there was a lot of redundancy in functionality and a few features that customers simply don’t use. We were set up for many quick wins. I also learned that that some very interesting interaction design choices were made i.e. triple-clicking menu items to expand associated information in some cases.
I worked with my product manager and front-end lead to strategize the next few cycles of work, prioritizing outcomes and getting an idea of what we'd do, when.
The primary job customers use Aware for is analyzing assessment(s) data through different lenses. Teachers and administrators are able to pivot the data based on different criteria i.e. ethnicity, special education status, grade, etc. The functionality is called “Quick Views
Despite it being the highest value task for users, accessing a quick view took a long time to get to. Users had to navigate multiple layers of a multi-layered tree navigation menu. In talking with our internal SMEs and customers, we learned that the large majority of time, users primarily visit the same 3-5 views. We redesigned the quick view flow to reflect that. Users are able to designate favorite views, bringing what they need most of the time to the highest level of visibility.
This was a huge improvement to the existing flow - including I also sought to simplify the navigation by housing quick views, under the umbrella of data views, which also contains saved views. I then evaluated this solution with a handful of customers. It was well received. This was a great exercise in stakeholder alignment and communication - our CSO was not convinced about the new design, specifically not having quick views as its own navigation item. Once we went through the documented research findings, he was on board. At this point, I looped in our customer success team to design an onboarding campaign with the tool we use, UserPilot to ensure that customers were aware of change in IA and why we made it, and the value it brings.
Quick Views: The Main Value-Driver of Aware
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Team
Product Manager, Front-End Engineer, Back-End Engineer, QA Engineer
Role
Product Design
2021-2023
Date
Date
Web
The Opportunity
Aware is Eduphoria’s flagship product. It’s an assessment analysis engine used by ~700,000 people in k-12 school districts primarily in Texas. Aware is an immensely powerful tool, but over its 15 year existence, a lack of user research, systems-thinking, and human-centered design, in general, compounded to result in a bloated experience with unintuitive interactions, outdated visual conventions and certain features that, simply put, did not provide customer value. All of this, in context of Eduphoria’s goal to expand to new markets in the near-term sparked a complete overhaul of the product, creating a new foundation that would allow us to build on top of it sustainably, setting the company up for long-term growth.
Through user feedback and market analysis it was clear that Aware needed to be revamped to enhance usability, focus on our customers’ jobs to be done, and bring its visual identity to modern standards.
Team
Product Manager, Front-End Engineer, Back-End Engineer,
QA Engineer
Role
Product Design
2021-2023
Date
Web
I worked with my product manager and front-end lead to strategize the next few cycles of work, prioritizing outcomes and getting an idea of what we'd do, when.
Visually, we used a stopgap solution - a beta palette - while collaborating on our brand refresh with an external agency. We will be implementing a visual experience that is consistent with our brand later this year.
The primary job customers use Aware for is analyzing assessment(s) data through different lenses. Teachers and administrators are able to pivot the data based on different criteria i.e. ethnicity, special education status, grade, etc. The functionality is called “Quick Views
Despite it being the highest value task for users, accessing a quick view took a long time to get to. Users had to navigate multiple layers of a multi-layered tree navigation menu. In talking with our internal SMEs and customers, we learned that the large majority of time, users primarily visit the same 3-5 views. We redesigned the quick view flow to reflect that. Users are able to designate favorite views, bringing what they need most of the time to the highest level of visibility.
This was a huge improvement to the existing flow - including I also sought to simplify the navigation by housing quick views, under the umbrella of data views, which also contains saved views. I then evaluated this solution with a handful of customers. It was well received. This was a great exercise in stakeholder alignment and communication - our CSO was not convinced about the new design, specifically not having quick views as its own navigation item. Once we went through the documented research findings, he was on board. At this point, I looped in our customer success team to design an onboarding campaign with the tool we use, UserPilot to ensure that customers were aware of change in IA and why we made it, and the value it brings.
Quick Views: The Main Value-Driver of Aware
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Beyond Parity
After a year, we achieved parity with Classic Aware. We moved onto new functionality that has been top of customers’ - and our - minds for some time. Single-Test-Analysis. We knew this from a combination of feature requests and conversations with districts. At this point, I was not doing the day-to-day work, but working with the designer who was, coaching them through the ups and downs of the project.
Single-Test Analysis is a complex tool, and although similar to Quick Views, it's different in that it generates visualizations that allow users to quickly analyze test results through comparative data sets.
The addition of single-test analysis, along with the simplified, intuitive redesign of the space made up a new "Aware Premium", that facilitated a sizable amount of net new and upsells.
Results
Aware continues to be the biggest earner for Eduphoria, accounting for more than half of Eduphoria’s annual revenue.
Once new navigational design and additional analysis features were implemented, we saw a 17% increase in product sales year-over-year.
Through this project I - along with the design team - forged a closer working relationship with customer success and support, which has proved to be extremely valuable for us in ensuring that we ensure that we’re not only building the right thing, but it’s desirable and usable, too.
Before I joined, Eduphoria had never tested designs with users, just internal folks. Through this project, the team was exposed to the immense value of shortening assumption cycles through user testing. I was proud to be able to lead that culture-shit for the product org.
There is still work to be done within Aware as we prepare to sell to out-of-state - figuring out how best to accommodate assessment practices of new markets.
Results
Aware continues to be the biggest earner for Eduphoria, accounting for more than half of annual revenue.
The implementation of new information architecture and additional analysis features led to a 17% increase in product sales year-over-year.
Through this project I - along with the design team - forged a closer working relationship with customer success and support, which has proved to be extremely valuable for us in ensuring that we’re building valuable, usable, and desirable things.
Before I joined, Eduphoria had never tested designs with users, just internal folks. Through this project, the team was exposed to the immense value of shortening assumption cycles through user testing with customers. I was proud to be able to lead that culture-shit for the product org.
There is still work to be done within Aware as we prepare to sell to out-of-state - namely, figuring out how best to accommodate specific regulatory and/or compliance needs of assessment practices in new markets.