Concept Testing an Educator’s Dashboard

August 2022-September 2022

EVERFI from Blackbaud

Imagine, you are a teacher and your students are completing courses online but you aren’t able to track how far your students are in each section of the course. This is similar to the experience teachers faced for several years and their desire was to receive more information to inform their decisions as teachers. EVERFI Homeroom platform hosts teacher’s courses, classes, student information, and gradebook. In the yearly voice of the customer feedback shared a repeated thread, teachers wanted to track student’s progress at a more granular level. 

Collaborating with Stakeholders

To kickoff the project, I met with the principal UX designer, the UX director and the product managers, to understand the product and to review voice of the customer feedback which clearly depicted the frustration of teachers. Teachers who assigned educational courses to their students needed a teacher dashboard depicting students progress and performance. Throughout the meetings, we discussed what teachers meant by this statement and how changes would affect their students and their roles. After understanding the main problem teachers were struggling with, the selection of the following objectives emerged.

Research Objectives

  • Understand teachers need around monitoring student progress.

  • Understand teachers need around monitoring students’ detailed assessment.

  • Establish a baseline in order to compare to the improved user experience.

Research Methodology

In the discovery stage of this project, it was important for the user experience team to get user feedback on designs to improve teacher’s homeroom experience. Initially, the team discussed utilizing a usability test but after consideration of resources and project goals, the decision was made to complete a concept test. This would allow the project team and stakeholders to get users initial feedback on designs to inform the best design layout of the progress and performance screens. 

Research Recruitment

Users were selected based on our internal users of the product. The users were representatives of two persona types. 

Teachers were given the opportunity to schedule their own meeting times and the concept testing was conducted remotely using Microsoft Teams.

Example Questions

Working with the principal user experience designer, we gathered feedback and insights of the new designs of the teacher dashboard interface.

During the concept test, teachers were shown sample progress and performance screens and were asked several questions to uncover preferences and understand the features that had the greatest impact on teacher’s data and progress tracking.

  • This is a new ____ page. Can you explain what you see and how you interpret the information presented?

  • What information stands out to you? Why?

  • Can you explain if ____ would be useful in monitoring student progress? Why?

  • Which option is the most ideal for you?

  • What is some information that is missing that you are often looking for?

  • How would you use _____?

Progress Screens

(created by Principal UX Designer)

Synthesis

At the end of each concept test, I analyzed the data to identify the main preferences, key features, and recommendations shared by each teacher. After collecting all data, I evaluated for common trends and created key insights. All research, tagging, analyzing and synthesizing was recorded in Dovetail.

Key Insights

  • Teachers found progress status on class cards relevant and useful because they could easily identify the progress of the entire class and individual students.

  • Most teachers preferred option 1 of the progress tab which depicted a granular level of course progression with visibility of each student progress .

  • 100% of teachers showed interest in the ability to view students assessment details-it was a source to drive instruction and a place of data reference for parents and staff.

  • Teachers found the number of attempts next to student assessment score useful to help inform redirection or remediation for each class.

Future Iterations

After evaluating the key insights, the design team will continue iterating on designs into the next quarter and will conduct usability testing to develop a product to meet the teachers needs.

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