SmartSub
My Role
I worked as the sole contributor in this design project.
Problem
I was inspired to design this app because of my experience as an art teacher, and also as a sub for coworkers. I could see that the educational system desperately needs not only more subs, but better subs. I wanted to make an app that supported these people integral to our education system to have higher job satisfaction, and allowed school districts to have higher retention rates.
Solution
SmartSub is an app I designed for substitute teachers to schedule job placements, coordinate and collaborate with classroom teachers, and receive training to hone their craft. Secondary Research
Inspired with an idea of a supportive app for subs, I took Hermione’s advice and conducted secondary research on the state of the current educational system in regards to substitute teachers. The American Association of School Administrators says, “A shortage of substitute teachers...across the country has never been more severe. The common thread among school districts dealing successfully with the substitute teacher shortage is training” (AASA). Surveys indicate that fewer than 10 percent of all school districts currently offer any training beyond a basic orientation to district policies (AASA.) The Texas Association of School Boards argues, “To combat this, districts should continue working to address the recruitment and retention of subs in creative and resourceful ways” (TASB.) I hope SmartSub can be one of the creative and resourceful ways that districts respond to the sub shortage.
Primary Research
Once the secondary research confirmed I was on the right track, I started doing primary research through interviews and a survey. I conducted several in person interviews with substitutes at my former (current at the time) school. I asked them about what training and scheduling was currently like, and about what they liked and didn’t like about the process. I also asked them to dream big and tell me what they wished they had. To broaden my research, I conducted a digital survey that went out to substitutes all over the nation through a Facebook support group for substitute teachers. I received 23 responses.
Affinity Map
Combining those 23 and 3 in person interviews, I began combing through the data to see any emerging themes. I created an affinity map, which in short categorizes each data item into several themes. In this case I had: current training, desired training, quotes, teacher feedback, pain points, and good things. After sorting through those themes, I wondered what all of the data meant. Through analysis I was able to make key insights from the data. I gleaned two main insights from the data: currently the training for subs insufficient or non-existent, and that lack of connection and isolation on campus are the major pain points.
Personas
When I imagined myself as a user, it prepared me to create personas. A persona is a conglomerate of many users I interviewed and surveyed. I made a persona for the Hopeful Sub named Patricia Norman, who uses her experience as a mom to manage the classroom well and bond with the kids. She might have struggles now and then, but overall has a positive view of education and loves kids. The Bitter Sub on the other hand, Eugene Wallace, does not have a positive view of education or kids. Eugene has been subbing too long, unsupported, and now cannot see a way for the system to improve. As I reviewed the data, another persona emerged I called The Future Educator, Liliana Dupre. This persona is in school to become an educator, and is subbing to gain real world experience on top of the textbook knowledge. She has good relationships with kids, but is still learning whole class management.
Mood Board
Using the personas and all of the gathered data, I brainstormed and thought of what SmartSub should be. Of course, it evolved over time, but themes remain the same. I want SmartSub to be so easy the users barely have to think about it. Subs are already stressed out, so I want SmartSub aesthetically to have a calming, reassuring appearance. With that in mind, I created a mood board with inspirational colors, fonts, formats, images, and icons. The color scheme was composed initially of indigos, blues, cool grays, and white, although it evolved over time. The key words of the mood board were sassy, caring, calm, empathetic, and smart.
Site Map
With the mood board complete, I was ready to start designing screens but first needed to determine what the screens would do. I designed a site map, which is a bird’s eye view of every page of the app and how they relate to each other. A common pattern that users complete is called a user flow, while the most popular flows are called red routes. This site map demonstrates the informational architecture of those red routes.
Sketches
Keeping the site map and mood board on hand, I then began drawing the basic sketches of the screens on paper with pen. From those sketches I was able to make a digital mock up of each screen. The advantage of digital mock ups as opposed to paper sketches is that I was able to prototype them and test for functionality and flow. I gathered five users to test the app for pain points and inefficiencies before spending lots of time on design.
Hi-Fidelity Mock Up
I worked off of the mood board and the digital mock ups to create a calm, sassy, simple user interface. I created four red routes: signing in, finding a lesson plan, leaving a report, and getting classroom management training. I kept the interface clean from distractions, except for vibrant photographs. I added icons next to clear labels for user ease. The goal of the design was to make a positive, reassuring space to get work done with minimal cognitive load.
Testing
With the high fidelity screens prototyped, I was ready for more user testing. For each round I had five users, some in person and some through a video chat. The pervasiveness of the COVID-19 virus impeded the testing greatly, and limited the amount of in person testing. The video chats often only permitted for limited views and didn’t provide as much information.
Round 2 of testing exposed two main pain points: the keyboard in the reporting feature, and color scheme contrast. The report feature where a substitute teacher can leave feedback for the normal classroom teacher contains a comment box that a keyboard pops up when you tap it. The keyboard popped up, however it did not go down. I edited the prototype to fix this function. The second pain point with the color scheme consisted of the colors being too calm, with no color pop. It didn’t allow the user to experience enough contrast or instinctively know what was most important. I added a chartreuse color to treat this problem.
Round 3 of testing produced positive results, with only minimal edits. This indicated to me that all major pain points were eliminated and now only tiny adjustments, like changing one font size to match another, were left. Once the small changes were made, the design was now ready for delivery to developers. Since this was a project for my design program and not a business, it never actually got the chance to go to developers.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
The greatest challenges I faced in this project, besides the newness of it all, was the COVID-19 virus and learning different programs. As mentioned earlier, the virus impacted the user testing in all 3 rounds and made it difficult to find participants and then also read the reactions of users. The second challenge of learning various programs was much more pleasant. I enjoyed figuring out the puzzle of how each program (Sketch, Marvel, InVision, and more) worked. I feel far more confident in my ability to use these programs in particular, but also my ability to adapt to other different programs as well.