Overview
Substitute teachers are high in demand but low in supply due to the lack of onboarding and professional support for subs. Substantial Classrooms is a non-profit organization created in summer 2019 to provide free professional development to existing and new substitute teachers, which includes webinars, online classes, and workshops.
Design a tech support page for members of Substantial Classrooms, a professional development platform for substitute teachers.
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
3 weeks
Type
Support Page
Member Feedback
Non-Profit
Education
Team
Carolyn Nguyen
Celia Diaz
Astoria Ho
Alyssa Guo
Problem
Members of Substantial Classrooms are not able to obtain support on the platform
Substitute teachers are high in demand but low in supply due to the lack of onboarding and professional support for subs. Substantial Classrooms is a non-profit organization created in summer 2019 to provide free professional development to existing and new substitute teachers, which includes webinars, online classes, and workshops.
Constraints
Our clients shared that they are a small team running a non-profit organization for free to better serve substitute teachers in need. Their site is hosted on GoogleSite due to its feasibility and low cost. Therefore, it is important that we design the solutions with these points in mind:
- Designs must be easy to implement with GoogleSites
- All tools need to be free
- Few existing members for research/testing (low amount of substitute teachers)
Research
Understanding the backgrounds of Substantial Classrooms members
Substitute teachers come from a variety of backgrounds, though similar contexts. They are typically:
- in the middle of a job transition
- working temporarily or full-time
- towards later middle-age
- not tech-savvy
What do good support pages do?
Our team familiarized ourselves by comparing support pages from a range of platforms. I was curious about platforms similar to Substantial Classrooms, which are non-profit educational platforms for the tech-friendly community.
I compared:
- Alison
- PBS TeacherLine
against other platforms my colleagues research:
- General Assembly
- Webflow University
- Khan Academy
- Coursera
- Skill Share
Key items I identified that were important were:
- how users provide feedback or reach out to the team if their questions are not on the website:
- calling the team – small team, so not preferable for client
interact with chatbot– not a free feature!- submit feedback through a form
As a team, we also learned:
- different types of information architecture, such as:
- wiki links
- Frequently Asked Questions
- question layouts
Assessing pain points from current users
After receiving feedback from stakeholders, I put together a user interview script to ask members of Substantial Classrooms about their experience on the platform so far.
From this, I learned that it was important for substitute teachers to have an avenue to leave feedback or reach out to the client if their questions are not answered on the tech support page. They also mentioned that they do not have a preference in whether it’s leaving a form or scheduling a call.
Ideation
Using user flows to determine information architecture for topic categories
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Our team divided up pages to perform low-fidelity wireframes.
How to lay out question topics?
I brainstormed different ways to lay out the information architecture of question categories. From here, I reviewed them with my team for feedback and decided on the features we want based on:
- feasibility to implement on Google Site
- Client’s ability to maintain and update as more questions come up
- user navigability
The feedback I received from my team was most positive for visually highlighting questions with previewed answers and wikilinks.
How to obtain member feedback?
I also worked on the Feedback page – the flow of how members provide feedback from the platform to the client.
Both the team and client liked having a footer for feedback in combination with a Google Form.
Final Designs
Implementing onto Substantial Classrooms
Question Categories and Feedback Footer
Based on the user flow I extrapolated from research and low-fidelity sketches, I created the high-fidelity page following Substantial Classrooms’ existing style guidelines. I created the navigation menu with categories, layout with questions and previewed answers, and the feedback footnote.
Desktop and Mobile Compatbility
Since substitute teachers may be on the go, I created layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile compatibility.
Feedback Forms
Lastly, the feedback footer option “Reach out to us!” lead to a Google Form that I put together. The option “schedule a call” leads to a MixMax link, at the client’s request.
Final Product
This is the final product where my whole team’s work is combined. It encompasses:
- home support page
- question categories page
- question + answer article page
- feedback footer interaction
Reflection
A design team makes everyone a better designer
Working with a team of designers generates way more ideas and inspires me to keep sharpening my skills!
I truly did not know the impact that substitute teachers had on the education system. I admire our client for being resourceful and committing to providing a free platform for subs.
There is a bigger issue here: the retention of substitute teachers. Onboarding goes beyond tech support. Onboarding includes how to work with students of marginalized backgrounds, managing classrooms and pedagogy, and better employee benefits.
As a designer, I learned:
- design choices are correlated with implementation (development + budget)
- leaning on stakeholders and adjacent users when direct users are lacking
- design solutions can include existing tools, as long as it solves the problem for stakeholders and users
