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The Mindful Applicant


Education Design System Client Work 2022
The Mindful Applicant is a web and mobile platform for students in grades 9–12, guiding a long-term, integrated process of self-discovery and imparting essential social-emotional skills such as reflection and introspection.

I focused on Student Portfolio Page and develop two flows for the Teacher Portal.

Solution Overview


In the past, various designers worked on the project, resulting in inconsistent designs due to the absence of a unified design system. My goal is to improve the experience, simplifying the visuals and interactions will be key to amplifying student engagement.




Redesign Opportunity 1
Analysis of the Current Portals


The student portal's homepage, featuring six functions, requires simplification and better organization. Together with the client, we evaluated each section's usage frequency, leading us to remove less frequently used tasks. This decision aims to create additional space for functions of higher priority, enhancing the page's overall user experience.

Previous Student Portal
Previous Teacher Portal


IDENTIFIED ISSUES  ︎︎︎

SOLUTION

Complex Information Architecture: The web app currently has a complex information architecture.
Simplify UI Elements: Streamline the user interface elements.


Excessive Text on Buttons: The issue is an overuse of text within button elements.
Improve Clarity: Introduce iconography to enhance the specification of actions and functions.
Low Intensity Color: The color displays a low level of intensity.
Enhance Contrast and Vibrancy: Introduce highly saturated shades to increase contrast and add vibrancy.
Typography Hierarchy Issue: The hierarchy is based solely on font sizes, resulting in large titles with regular weights that fail to provide sufficient focus and increase page clutter.

Typography Adjustment: Opted to reduce title and type sizes while emphasizing hierarchy with heavy weights to increase white space.
Blur Hierarchy: The excessive use of color has blurred
the hierarchy of content.
Achieving Consistency: To ensure a uniform style throughout the platform, standardizing the design is imperative.


Design Opprtunity 2
Streamline Student Assignment Process





My Solutions


I designed an experience that allows students to complete the latest homework assigned by their counselors, offering them the option to keep their responses private or visible to the counselors.



Design Opprtunity 3
Creating Assignment Function on the Counselor's Portal


To simplify the complex flow provided by the client, I categorized the features into three distinct groups: "Viewing Course Content," "Viewing Student Status," and "Publishing Assignments."





Publishing Assignments

To ensure that teachers effectually publish and collect homework, I generated fill-in elements based on information teachers usually need for the process.

Viewing Homework Content

Teachers check on preloaded homework content



 

Viewing Student Status

To check on students' recent status regarding their homework, teachers click into each group to locate the student in mind.


Final Thoughts


Design without Research
Entry-level Designers commonly think UX design workflow are always sprint-based. However, I learned that realistically things not go step by step. Given the limited time frame and amount of tasks , I was not able to perform a formal R&D process on each features. To ensure each feature's usability, my strategy is looking for references on the market and use fragments of time to test out prototype with mentors, colleague and friends. thus allowing me to think critically within different lenses and apply product-based thinking to the designs I create.‍

If I would have more time...
In the initial meetings with my client, Sarah, she mentioned the idea that grades cannot fully define a student. The education of Social-emotional learning and student's social-emotional skills should be as equivalent to academic education and performance. Inspired by the concept and put my own shoes into our target audience and considering how academic performance a sensitive topic for students back in high school, I realized that privacy plays a huge part in usability. If I am given a longer timeframe, I would like to discover how to embed privacy to the design system to not only make the web app a comfy and secure place for students reflecting themselves but also build a strong connection between students and teachers.

Thanks to mentors
Special shoutout to Sara and Russ. Thank you for taking your time out every week for critiquing my designs and providing insights in the field for me to grow as a UX designer. ☺