NICOLE PLANTE
Kiddom is a web and mobile app that offers a free curriculum builder and digital gradebook for K-12 teachers. When Kiddom developed a partnership with a curriculum provider, it necessitated rethinking the gradebook.
I was the sole product designer working with a Product Manager, with some oversight from Head of Design in the beginning.
Important to note, this was during a transition time where we no longer had our Head of Design or PM mid-way through the project.
As we were defining the project, I utilized our user feedback, interviews, and personas to understand how teachers grade. Some key understandings:
- Inputting grades is necessary but time-consuming
- Teachers are used to grid formats
- Teachers who do mastery-based grading need more tools and detailed reports
Support standards-based grading for question-level inputs to support the new curriculum partnership.
- How might we support standards-based grading, and more specifically, mastery-based grading for the curriculum partnership?
- How might we address UX debt?
- How might we enable quick, painless grading for a variety of grading methods?
There was not a formal design brief or PRD at the time, so I gathered our PMs in order to think through the problem and address product priorities.
From our conversation, I focused on developing questions and key goals that would incapsulate the problem.
- Grade books are usually grids.
- Mastery-based grading uses color to distinguish levels and can be very detailed but lacked context.
- No mastery-based grade book enabled question-level reporting
I set out to design something better than a traditional grid grade book.
I investigated the known research on our users and did comprehensive audits for student and grading experiences.
Additionally, I researched digital and print grade books in a variety of grading methods.
- Move away from legacy designs
- Enable horizontal, vertical inputs
- Solve for question-level grading
I used existing, legacy components to make some quick mock ups to get feedback from our CEO, Product, Engineering, and Design on our direction and bandwidth.
I met with the PM to talk through the shifting landscape for our components. We decided that the trajectory was to support the curriculum builder design.
- Reflect curriculum builder style
- Explore question-level input
- Explore horizontal, vertical grading
- Explore ways to represent rubrics
Teachers were looking for a grid-layout for workflow optimization. For example, teachers may want to grade a single student across for all questions or grade each question for each student down the line.
Design Idea: the vertical roster would enable workflow (who am I grading) the horizontal bar would support question level (what am I grading).
I shared my 4 options for feedback:
Option 1: Popover input
Option 2: Line input
Option 3: Toggle screens for workflow
Option 4: Modified grid for question level
Keeping in mind how mobile might support the options.
When I was gathering the mock ups above for a prototype test it with users, the project was reassigned to the new Senior Product Designer for a fresh perspective.
Looking back, I also see this as an opportunity to learn about communication. While I did create a document for the Lead of Product to check in on the progress, I tend to design the most complicated view first, to test the complexity of the system, so I had not yet pared down the designs to show a less complicated use case. I was looking forward to user testing to validate the next design decisions for revision.
Without testing, I did a mock up of some revisions to see how I would address complexity challenges.
Take a look!
© 2024 Nicole Plante