Overview
Perfect Day is an integrated automation application designed specifically for the Lady Bird Academy daycare centre to automate day to day operations and simplify complicated workflows for staff, and grant greater visibility to parents about the wellbeing of their children.
Project Goals
The goal was to create a centralized location where parents can communicate with the daycare admin and view their children whenever and wherever.
Enable teachers and staff can track and update children's attendance records and activities.
Enable parents to keep track of their children digitally 24/7 with detailed insights about their classroom activities.
Role & Responsibilities
I was a member of the UX/UI Design team. My responsibility was creating the user interface for the Perfect Day application from discovery to making high-fidelity mock-ups and interactive prototypes for 6 months. My area of focus was broadened by conducting usability testing as I made further revisions to the mock-ups to improve user experience.
I conducted internal research and competitive analysis to understand the market for daycare applications and how they solve the design problem. I also conducted user interviews with Ladybird daycare staff members to understand how they track and update children's attendance records and activities
I spent most of my time working on designing, reviewing, and making iterations supporting the design decisions using Adobe XD. It includes me following the branding guidelines, typography, colour palette, etc.
Tools and Methods
Adobe XD was the primary tool I used for designing and prototyping, and I relied heavily on user research to uncover user pain points, behavior, and needs. Then I continued to further refine my design concept during phase two of the project.
Interview Insights
The team conducted 1-on-1 user interviews with parents who had their children enrolled at the daycare to determine what kind of features were most important to them. Many of the parents I personally spoke with placed emphasis on the ability to see their kids, and quickly get in touch with a staff member at the daycare. More granular details such as tracking daily activities were also wanted, which we decided to further incorporate.
To enable parents to quickly contact a staff member, I worked on creating mock-ups and wireframes for the implementation of a chat feature. Parents were then contacted again to navigate using an active prototype I created so that I could collect feedback about the usability of the feature.
User Persona
I created the following persona based on my experience interviewing parents during our initial research phase.
Problem Statement
How might we develop an application that acts as the single source of truth for parents wanting to check-in on their children at daycare, and as an automation tool for daycare staff to track daily activities with transparency for parents?
Value Proposition
Get answers to your questions using our parent app chat feature. You can talk with the front desk, administrator at any time during regular business hours.
Message your childcare center daily
Get answers to your questions using our parent app chat feature. You can talk with the front desk, administrator at any time during regular business hours.
Check-in safely and easily
Your child’s teacher can send instant reminders directly to your parent app about when your child needs supplies, clothes, updated healthcare documents, and more.
Receive reminders daily
Your Perfect Day newsfeed will show you what your child ate, when they napped, participated in a lesson, or had a potty break. You’ll also see pictures and videos.
See your child’s activities in real-time
Challenges & Scope
Challenges faced during the project were mainly on the development side. The application was to integrate on the back end with different hardware and software used at the daycare, such as the camera in the common area for parents to see their kids. This created difficulty in receiving feedback from the development team on the implementation of our proposed interface as they face a bottleneck. Fortunately, we had enough time to resolve issues and make proper amendments.
The integration of hardware and networking devices created a bottleneck with the development team. The design team made steady progress at every stage of the project, though we were slowed down at times because we had to make late revisions when other teams were able to get caught up. We were given a fair amount of time, therefore all issues were amended. Overall, we were able to collaborate effectively to create a holistic application in a field that is still ripe for innovation.
Competitive Analysis
I created the following persona based on my experience interviewing parents during our initial research phase.
Information Architecture
The primary goal when designing the information architecture was to keep the number of pages for parents and teachers to a minimum. The focus of teachers is to be remain in the class settings, and parents should have critical information at their finger tips. However for administrators, the dashboard is supposed to be their one stop solution for everything related to what goes in the classes. The dashboard provides access to additional features such as reporting, staff scheduling, rooms, student profiles.
Iterations
Make use of images and interactive design components
Integrating colorful images as icons not only helps the users distinguish quickly which area or feature of the application they are on, it also stays true to the mental head space of the educators and parents who want the children to be learning in positive and enriching environment.
Wireframe
Educators are able to check in students at all time keeping track of all students
Pre recorded library of all video content submitted to feed
The live button was relocated from the top right corner to the bottom for easier access
Ability to execute different action items without scrolling
The guidance received from stakeholders was that the web-interface should have everything the user needs front and center. The result was creating focused and deliberate pages where all the information and selections were fitted concisely without the need for lengthy pages that require lots of scrolling.
Hover or Modals?
In the initial stages of our design process, we intended to implement a popover function that would display additional information when an admin hovered over a specific element. However, after careful consideration and analysis, we decided to pivot towards utilizing modals instead. Recognizing these advantages, we decided to apply the modal design strategy across all screens.
Modals, compared to hover-over popovers, provide a more focused and immersive environment for displaying in-depth information. They allow the admins to view comprehensive details about the parents without the distraction of the background content.
Modals facilitate better user engagement. They demand interaction from users, which aligns well with our goal of ensuring that admins fully absorb the crucial information presented
Final Design - for Parents
Real-time Activity Feed
The childcare management software is a holistic solution where all information regarding the children, teachers, schedules, and attendance are kept. Updates to any of the categories can be viewed by parents and staff, including daily schedules and activities for the children.
Secure & Contactless Check-in
For an added layer of security we use a QR code scanner for authorized pick-up and drop-off, which keeps track of student attendance and let parents check in their children the moment they drop them off.
Instant Messaging
Parents and staff can connect instantly through the instant message feature. The chat service is the most convenient way for both parties to keep in touch.
Parents can edit the children’s information, including their allergies, medications, doctor information, and parents’ information. This will automatically sync to the system so teachers can help manage the children better.
Student Profiles
Final Design - for Parents
Online Check-in
The check-in interface is create to make for speedy interaction. Teachers want to quickly identify and mark off students that are present, therefore we chose to include pictures associated with names, because the connection between what the teacher sees in the class can be made quicker with images that are cross referenced.
Check-out
Presenting teachers with the contact information of parents still present is an important feature. In the event of an extended delay, teachers can easily contact parents. This feature will also help teachers quickly accustomed to the caretakers of the children under their supervision.
Final Design - for Admins
To bring everything together, we created an Admin Interface that brings together all the core functions of Perfect Day. Users accounts can managed, data analytics are laid out in a presentable fashion, and schedules can be managed with more granular detail. Teachers are empowered with the data analytics as they gain crucial insights on the progress of how the students are doing.
Reflection
Design thinking provides layers of insights. Especially during the research and usability testing phases, I was able to engage directly with users throughout multiple phases of the project. It allowed me to stay consistent in empathising with my users and keeping them at the focal point of all design decisions.
Usability testing yields actionable feedback that inevitably builds a stronger product. The pinpointed feedback from users while they directly interact with the prototype is extremely valuable in evaluating what is and isn’t working.
