KUBO - input students' scores

Improving KUBO,
Offline School Management Software in Isolated Areas

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Overview to improve KUBO software

My roles

UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher

Team

1 Project Manager
2 UX/UI Designer
4 Developpers
3 Marketers

Tools

Figma
Miro

Others

When: May 2022 - December 2022
Scope: I redesigned some parts of the software.
Constraint: software on desktop
It's a volunteer project.

Goals

To make the software more intuitive for users (teachers and school staff) to input students' scores and data to software, to help users to filter students based on certain categories.

Outcomes

✔ 3 new features:

1. filter students based on categories

2. dashboard to see overview

3. student raport analytic feature

✔ More intuitive experience

Interview & usability test

Redesign: before & after

What I learned

Problem

Teachers in The Gambia have limited access to technology and internet

In The Gambia, teachers have trouble with the expensive cost of internet and the bad signals. So, they mostly use paper to do their tasks manually. What a time-consuming process. Consequently, they hardly focus on the main task, which is teaching. The worst part is when floods occur. The students' scores and administrations on papers are damaged or even lost.

A gambian teacher is teaching in the classroom

Learning activities at Albreda school. Lack of electricity and internet.

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The students' scores and school administrations that are written manually on papers.

Therefore KUBO is created, as the solution for schools in isolated areas. Throughout KUBO platform, school staff can manage school administration digitally and efficiently. Meanwhile, students can access educational content digitally.

Currently, KUBO platform is running in The Swallow school in The Gambia. Soon, we will be working in another isolated area in Africa, thanks to our donors on Afrodidact. (Finger crossed).

Ahmed, a happy local who can use a computer for the first time in his life.

Computer class in The Swallow school.

Users' pain points

Even while KUBO operates, teachers & school staff still do some tasks manually

To identify users' challenges within KUBO software, I created an offline survey, face-to-face interview, and usability test with questions to discover what frustrated them when using KUBO. This research has been done with the help of The Swallow school headmaster. I discovered:

Filtering students manually

To make list of students based on certain categories, users still do it manually with papers or with offline computer.

Analyse progress manually

To analyze students' progress, users still do it manually.

Analyse administration manually

To check and analyze the school activities and administration, users still do it manually.

Solutions

Based on the user pain points, usability test and what users need, KUBO can provide:

Student analytic

Students' analytics to track students' progress fast and to identify which areas students who need extra help.

Easy to input data

Simple way to input attendance records, scores, grades, students data.

Filter students

Filter students based on certain categories.

FAQ

To help new users learn how to use this platform since some of them are new computer users.

Dashboard overview

Users can overview effortlessly the school's administration, finances, and the activities.

The original design

User Research

As a users' advocate, I wanted to understand the teachers and school staffs better: their problems, behavior, needs, and feedback. I used 2 methods:

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Primary research

I conducted user interviews and usability tests when I visited two schools in The Gambia. Those were The Swallow school and Albreda school. I interviewed teachers, headmaster, and school staffs.

Go to

Competitive research

I collect data from the internet about what features commonly exist on the school management platforms.

Go to

Competitive research

What features and elements to help KUBO's users?

I did competitive research from similar products to get insights about the trend and how these softwares handle the 3 frustrations of users: to filter students, to analyse progress, and to analyse school administration in fast way. This insight I can use to design KUBO software, based on KUBO users' needs.

Here's the summary of the competitive research:

Competitors

SMP (School Management Platform)
Laravel School Management Platform
Power School

Features & elements to add

Log-in page has several options: log in as a teacher or log in as a student
Overview or analytic of the activities and administration of the school
On student page, there are data about their parents occupation, blood group, someone who can be contacted if there's urgency matter
On the menu, there are: academic setting
Add photos of each student and teacher

We currently don't find any competitor that provides free software (digital platform) without internet connectivity for schools in isolated places. But KUBO works similarly with prepaid school platforms such as these 3 platforms.

During my observations, I discovered these elements and features that could be added on KUBO platform to help teachers and headmasters.

Interview & usability test

What categories should be on students' filter feature? what other tasks that users still do it manually?

The aim of this interview and conducting usability tests is to know users' abilities in using computers, whether are they newbies or already got used to using computers, how they filter students based on certain categories, what categories they usually filter the students into, and to know another task that they still do it manually.

From this activity, we can get insight into how KUBO can help teachers and headmasters' to do their tasks more effectively.

The result summary:

I interviewed 5 users.
All users feel frustrated with filtering students based on certain categories because currently they can only do it manually.
Students' categories that users usually filter: 4 users need to sort students by their age, 3 users need to sort students by their language, 2 users need to sort students by their gender.
Other tasks that users still do manually: to overview all activities in the school, to find fast students who need extra lessons in a certain subject, to find all students who speak Wolof language and have bad scores in English, users depend on other teachers to show him how to do some tasks on KUBO software, and to analyze student’s performance.

Step 1

DETERMINE GOALS

To understand the process how users find students based on certain categories
To understand what features KUBO can improve and provide to help them to complete tasks?

Step 2

DEFINE TARGET USERS

Teachers in The Swallow school and Albreda school
School staff in The Swallow school and Albreda school
Age: 25-55 years old
Has a computer or laptop
Doesn't have a computer or laptop
Genders: all genders
English speakers
English speakers and local language speakers
Ethnicity: all tribes in The Gambia

Step 3

WRITE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How often do you use a computer or laptop?

-Where?
- What do you do on a computer?

2. How often do you use KUBO platform?

3. Let's say, you need to find all students who are 9-14 years old and speak the Mandika language. Can you show me how you find them on KUBO? Is it easy or frustrating?

4. Our team plans to add a filter feature to help you to find students with certain categories. What categories should exist? Such as grade, tribe, language, and what else?

5. What do you expect KUBO to help you more?

Step 4

RECRUITE PARTICIPANTS

5 participants are chosen based on the requirements we had defined. To respect confidentiality, I don't show their real name and age.
Isatou, 42 years old headmaster of a school in The Gambia , has a personal laptop and personal wifi to work and do personal activities
Aja, a 33 years old teacher in an isolated school in Albreda who doesn't have a laptop and still learn to operate the KUBO platform
Muhammad, a 50-year-old teacher in an isolated school in Albreda who doesn't have a laptop or computer, still follows training on how to operate a computer
Ousmane, 27 years old, lives in an isolated area in Albreda, doesn't have a laptop or computer, and follows training on how to operate a computer.
Adame, 47 years old teacher, lives in an isolated area, doesn't have a laptop or computer, and has followed training on how to use KUBO.

It took longer to get honest feedback from Gambian participants, compared to Indonesian and European ones in my previous projects. In my opinion, Gambian participants are polite and avoid giving critical feedback, as they may see it as disrespectful. When I tested the platform with Gambian teachers and a headmaster, they initially said they were satisfied but struggled while using it. So, I worked to build trust and encouraged them to share their honest feedback. I tried to ensure them that we need their honest feedback even if it's negative feedback, because it would help us improving the platform.

User personas

Based on the user research and user group, I created 3 user personas to represent KUBO's users with different backgrounds and needs.

Isatou

Age: 42 years old

Work: Headmaster, teachers for 20 years.

Location: Serrekunda, The Gambia

Pains:

To overview administration of schools, I need to open it in several platforms.

Goals:

Wants to check school administration and actvities in efficient way.

Needs:

A feature that show school administration and activities
An user-friendly platform
More instructions from KUBO team for each features

Ida

Age: 35 years old

Work: Teacher

Location: Serrekunda, The Gambia

Pains:

To track her students' progress, she needs to open each student's profile and analyze it manually

Goals:

Wants to find out fast her students' progress and then adjust her teaching methods

Needs:

A feature to view her students progress in a fast way.

Ahmed

Age: 50 years old

Work: English teacher

Location: Serrekunda, The Gambia

Pains:

Still learn how to operate computer, newbie in digital
To create a list of students who speak Wollof and have bad scores in English lessons

Goals:

To spend his time more on preparing extra English lesson and giving lesson
Not depend on other person while using KUBO (use KUBO easily)

Needs:

A feature to know fast all students who speak Wollof and have bad scroes in English
An user-friendly platform with clear instruction and guidance

Isatou

Headmaster

Ahmed

Teacher

Users stories

Ida

Teacher

"I want to check the administration of my school, academic performance, financial, schedule, or any issue in a fast way, so that I can work efficiently"

"I want to track students' progress easily, so that I can adjust my teaching methods"

"I want to be able use KUBO platform in easy way to find fast all students who speak Wollof and have bad scores in English, so that I can spend my time more on preparing the extra English lesson and giving lessons"

Users tasks

Wireframes

The redesign: before & after

View the prototype

Before

This login does not seem have a brand color and brand voice.

After

Add jargon of this platform to provide users the quick info on benefits why users need to use this platform.

Apply KUBO brand colors on first interface to differentiate KUBO platform from other platforms.

Create a simple design. Since our users are teachers who are still learning to use computers, we want them assume at the first glance that "it is easy and simple to use KUBO platform".

To log in to this platform, we still use username, not e-mail since some teachers don't have e-mail addresses. Our developer and school admin who have access to add new users.

Before

The selected menu looks not clickable. That might confuse users if it's an active element or not.

Some icons don't represent the menu list: My student icon, Health, and School Administration.

After

Break down the left menus, so that users can find what they are looking for faster.

To highlight the clicked menu, I chose a purple color to create a clear visual hierarchy that helps user navigating quickly in which page they are now.

I changed the icons of some menus to be more representative, si that it can help users to scan the pages or contents:

- My Students: with an icon of an user with graduation cap

- Health: with an icon of medical service symbol (plus)

- School Administration: with an icon of list

Teachers and headmasters struggle to overview important information quickly. If they want to do it, they have to do it manually, to open a lot of pages they need. What a time-consuming process!

Before

There is no dashboard feature

After

Create new feature: dashboard

I created a dashboard feature that can show a quick overview of the school's performance and operations, such as attendance, academic calendar, and to-do list. This feature can helps users to work faster: to know what's going on faster, and to make plans faster.

Talking to headmasters and teachers helped me understand what info they need to know daily, so I'm putting it all on the Dashboard.

Before

One of users' problems is they still filter students manually based on certain categories. They write down on paper or make a list on the computer.

On our current platform, we only provide a search feature to find a student. It's challenging for users to find a student with specific criteria quickly.

The hierarchy in the table is not clear: between the title and the the other texts.

Some users are not familiar with the icons or symbols of the two genders. It slows them down to scan the info.

After

Add a filter feature to help users to find a student list quickly based on specific criteria. Based on grade, age, tribe, language, and gender. These categories are the the most searched by teachers and headmasters.

Emphasize the titles on the table to create a hierarchy on the interface.

Replace the gender icon into text "female" or "male", so that all users can scan it fast. Gender icon is not common knowledge for Gambian people.

Before

The hierarchy is not clear, so users take some times to read it.

After

Break down the profile with a clear hierarchy, so that users can scan the info faster.

Add a class status (on badge) "Grade 4" after the student's name. These two are the most important info on a student's profile. It can help users to identify a student faster.

If users click the Grade 4 badge, it can direct users to the page of Grade 4 list and find they need there faster.

Before

Users strunggle to analyze students' progress which they still do it manually. They open each student's reports and then analyze it.

I tested this to our team. They are confused about what button to click to print this report. It shows that it's not clear which part users need to click to print it. They just randomly clicked.

The black bold texts (Term 1, Term 2, Term 3) are actually buttons to download the document, not to print it. This can create more confusion for users because they think they had clicked the print button, so they wait for the document is being printed out. But actually, they just download the document and they need to click another button to print it.

After

I add a new feature, Student Performance feature where teachers can have quick info about students' performance without analyze it manually.

Change Print button into View button because the function of this button is to view the report document, not to print it.

View the prototype

What I learned

It took more time to get honest feedback

Because of cultural differences, it took longer to get honest feedback from Gambian participants compared to Indonesian and European ones in a previous project. Gambian participants are polite and avoid giving critical feedback, as they may see it as disrespectful. When I tested the platform with Gambian teachers and a headmaster, they initially said they were satisfied, but struggled with using it. So, I worked to build trust and encouraged them to share their feedback, even if it was negative feedback, because it would help improve the platform.

Considering the technology limitation

We only have four developers as volunteers, the limited electricity with solar panels, and the unstable internet connection in The Gambia. It takes more time to get information from the school staffs and to develop new features. So, patience is key.

I felt slapped right in my face many times

Before going to The Gambia, I often compared my life in Indonesia, a third-world country, to Europe. Indonesia always seemed left behind in education, science, and technology. But when I visited The Gambia, I realized how lucky I was to have had access to technology and a good education from a young age. Even though it may not have been the best, I still had more access than many.

In The Gambia, I met people ranging from 5 to 50 years old who were incredibly happy because we set up computer classes in their villages. It was their first time ever using a computer!

Interested to join us or donate?

Please visit https://www.afrodidact.org/