M.
Teacher Plan-It.
My
Role
UX DESIGN
Created the concept for the site
Prototyped experiences at low and high fidelity through concept sketches, wireframes, and interactive prototypes. Completed visual design.
Conducted observations, interviews, survey, and user testing. Completed the affinity mapping process and design implications.
UX RESEARCH
FINAL ITERATION
Results
Aided
Reduced
Teachers in writing lesson plans in less time
The time teachers spent finding resources on the web by 25 minutes per hour spent planning.
In 2019, the average teacher spent 14 hours of personal time working.
Problem
Currently, there is no quick and easy way to write lesson plans. Teachers spend hours outside of work finding resources, trying to differentiate lessons, and writing lesson plans. I wanted to design a website that would empower teachers to take their time back.
Pain Points
Lesson planning takes too much time due to the need to recreate templates.
Lesson plans have to be referred to and shared often, but they are not easy to understand quickly.
Teachers are unable to set customizable templates to help them write plans faster.
There is no quick and easy way to find lesson resources.
Understanding Users
Faster way to write lesson plans
A way to set up lesson plan templates required by his school
TERRY
Lesson planning cuts into time with his family
Looking for new resources takes too long so he sticks with what he has always done
Frustrations
Can’t find an easy way to share her lesson plans with her team
Hates having to bring work home at night
Easier way to share plans with her team
A quicker way to lesson plan
Needs
Frustrations
56 / Married / Teaching for 27 years
Needs
ANA
27 / Single / Teaching for 4 years
How Might We
How might we help teachers find resources quickly?
003
How might we help teachers be able to view and share all of their lessons easily?
001
How might we leverage templates to make the lesson planning process more efficient?
002
The users liked being able to embed to do lists into their calendars. They also liked having a page where they could go to collaborate on lessons. However, users wanted to be able to write and share plans from their own homepages.
Users also preferred the separate week view, and were very excited about the grouped lesson resources that would be available to them. However, users wanted to see more resources at a glance from the main page.
Sketches
After receiving feedback from users on the sketches, the How Might We questions and the User Personas were revisited. This ensured each stage of the iterative design process focused on user needs.
WIREFRAMES
Users loved the simple and efficient on-boarding process that allowed them to set up their planbooks.
Iteration 1
The first iteration was completed in January 2018 when I first began this project before learning about design. The designs were shown to users and the key takeaways from the feedback is presented below.
Inconsistent design with no clear branding.
Design relies on color and is hard to read in some areas for many teachers.
Unclear that there are many types of resources to choose from. Design of resource page is inconsistent with the rest of the site.
001
002
003
Key Takeaways
Iteration 2
The second iteration was completed in September 2019 after receiving feedback from iteration one. Iteration 2 is shown in detail below.
Lesson Plan Templates
Teachers are now able to navigate through a simple and quick onboarding process that allows teachers to set up their lesson plan templates.
During the onboarding process, teachers are able to add customized planning templates and adjust their class schedule according to their needs.
Lesson Resources
Lesson resources have been updated to include clear images of plans, books, videos, and websites. Indicators show that users can scroll to see more resources.
Teachers can access these resources within Teacher Plan-It and can easily integrate these resources into their plans with a click of a button.
USER FLOW
USER TESTING
Users were given tasks to complete and were asked to think aloud while completing these tasks. Users were also asked questions about individual screens, and the lesson planning process while using Teacher Plan-It.
Feedback
Next Steps
Design
Prototype
Evaluate
I plan to utilize feedback from the user testing sessions to design and prototype iteration three. Then, I would evaluate the next iteration with teachers to get their feedback.
I would like to interview administrators and coaches in order to better understand the needs they have in regards to teacher lesson plans. Then, I would design features that could help address their needs as well.
Key Takeaway: You are not the user.
Due to the fact that I am also a teacher, it was tempting at times to design for what I would want or need. I made sure to get other teachers' feedback early and often in order to meet their needs and not my own.
LESSONS LEARNED
December 2018 - September 2019
Tools
Team
Adobe XD, Principle
Independent Project
An all encompassing teacher planner that drastically reduces planning time for teachers.
of teachers share lesson plans with administration, coaches, and other teachers
resources are used on average to write lesson plans
of teachers must use a specific lesson plan template
of teachers spend 50 or more minutes visiting websites to find resources
74%
12
68.5%
48.7%
Key
Findings
from our research
Teachers can share part of or all of their lesson plans and collaborate with other teachers with the push of a button.
The planbook was simplified to provide a consistent design that users can recognize as being a part of the Teacher Plan-It brand. Plans are also easily viewable at a glance in a variety of formats.
Share
Lesson Plans
Teachers loved that they could share their lesson plans with colleagues. However, teachers wanted to be able to have separate team plans in a different location.
001
Teachers stated that the Resources page was very helpful to decrease time spent planning. They also stated that they usually share resources with colleagues, and would like to see a feature added that enabled them to share resources they found on the Resources page with colleagues.
002
Many teachers appreciated the unit view of the planbook. However, they noted that they typically follow a district wide predetermined pacing guide, and they would prefer to see their district pacing guides in place of the unit view.
003
I find myself so frustrated I could cry. Lesson planning is time consuming and it's stealing my time. I sometimes have to tell my boys no when they want to play after school, because I have to write plans.
Teacher
Methods
To better understand the lesson planning process, I first observed teachers planning as a group and individually. I realized the importance of plans that could be shared easily as each teacher volunteered to plan a different content area.
Observations
I conducted a Competitive Analysis of three different digital teacher plan books to understand the ways teachers currently plan. I found that Teacher Plan - It should have lesson plan templates that are easy to set up and change, the ability to share lesson plans easily, and lesson resources available within the website.
Competitive Analysis
10 teachers were interviewed about their experiences lesson planning throughout their career. The teachers talked about the lengths of time that they were spending during the lesson planning process.
Interviews
Surveys
A survey was sent out in order to understand the perspective of teachers all over the country. I received 73 responses and one word continued to come up: dread.
Affinity Map
I used an Affinity Map to organize the data gathered so far.
Patterns emerged showing that there were challenges with writing plans, using plans, and the lesson planning process in general.
It was immediately clear that this was not okay.
Teachers should not be spending 14 hours a day lesson planning. They shouldn't have to sacrifice time with their families in order to feel prepared for the next school day.
All that I learned so far helped me to generate a few crucial statements that would guide the design phase of this project.
Design.
Research.
After receiving feedback from users on the wireframes, I saw a need for more customizable features during lesson plan set up. I made sure to focus on improving the customization of templates as I moved into higher fidelity designs.