The Sidekick project curriculum builder streamlines modern curriculum building and learning standard alignment while keeping usability and accessibility in the forefront.
Client: Sidekick
My roles: Research, User interviews, Information architecture, Prototyping
Time: 3 weeks
Programs used: Sketch, Invision, Axure
Team: Alex Barnwell, Natalie Parke
The Background
Sidekick is a company that creates real world project based learning curriculums for high school teachers. Sidekick partners with nonprofits to provide real world solutions to real world problems. Nonprofits bring a problem to Sidekick in the form a project brief which is then turned into a project based curriculum for high school students to complete. Once the projects are completed the information is given to the non-profits to use.
The Challenge
Sidekick came to us seeking help in developing their curriculum building tool. The company had beta prototype in the form of a pdf document that had not been tested before. Sidekick envisioned that university students studying education would be the ones developing the curriculum in the early stages of the product. Ultimately the product would use artificial intelligence to create the programs but we would be designing for an in person curriculum developer.
The Beta Prototype
“Translate the cumbersome manual process [of creating a curriculum] into a streamlined digital experience.”
To do this we would focus on:
• Explore existing mental models of curriculum building
• Examine the current prototype for gaps
• Ensure the curriculum building application has all the necessary functionalities
Building Empathy
We needed to talk to teachers who were creating their own curriculum and those who were not. This was a challenge for us because many public school districts use a prepackaged curriculum program that teachers have limited control over. We found teachers from charter schools, private schools and some public school teachers who had experience in building curriculum. Going into the interviews we wanted to know:
How do they build their curriculum?
What makes a curriculum successful?
What are the core aspects of the curriculum building process?
In our user testing we also showed those we tested the prototype that Sidekick had given us. We wanted to know if the prototype made sense and if they would know how to use it. While performing the product test we would ask the teachers if this process made sense and if they knew what to do from the instructions given on the prototype.
An affinity diagram used to help organize our key insights from research
Teachers want customization and flexibility.
“Some people want to be told what to do, some people want to be creative and adaptive. I would respond really negatively for scripted. I would have something that is adaptable, have a pdf, give a creative license to change.” - Teacher
“I wanted the freedom to design it myself, but then I found it nice because I could take the pre-existing structure and level it to my guys. I could individualize how that system could run itself.” - Teacher
We synthesized that teachers would need a framework that they can edit and make their own.
Teachers want to collaborate
“We always steal ideas and offer each other ideas. You glean so much from the other teachers, their personality or their way to meet a standard.” - Teacher
“It was nice when I found high quality lessons online or from colleagues.” - Teacher
We took away that teachers like the new influx of ideas and are always looking to recommend and find new ways of learning and teaching.
Project Based Learning will be more readily adopted by younger teachers
“The first person that you’d see try project based learning is a senior teacher. They know the stumbling that students will face when learning something.” - Teacher
“The reason that you may see more younger teachers doing it is because they are more willing to do something different.” - Teacher
Our products needs to flexible with users of all ages, there will not be a set age or educational proficiency for our users.
Beta Testing
Teachers commented how their was unfamiliar language being used, and questioned if a teacher had ever looked at this to okay it. It was clear to us that we would have to redo the whole process that we had here.
“It’s inventing new names I’m not familiar with”- Teacher
There were features that the teachers and curriculum developers liked as well such as the auto populating of standards, teachers questioned how the standards would auto populate within the system. Also it was not immediately clear what auto-populates and what does not. The mastery plan that was written did not make any sense to those who looked at it. All of the planning materials needed contextualization and instruction.
Taking apart the product, reorganizing the product and labeling
The Users
Sidekick told us that the main users would be an experienced curriculum developer and a curriculum developer novice. Through our research and users interviews we were able to find the goals and frustrations of the two users. In the process, we used the Jobs to be done method, and looked at what jobs each potential user would have to do.
With our users and their goals and frustrations defined we now wanted to see the landscape of the market. We sought out to look at other products like Sidekick as well as nondirect compeitiors.
The Landscape
We decided to look at direct competitors, indirect competitors and non-direct competitors. We looked at the strengths and weaknesses of three companies specifically.
Educurious
Sidekick told us Educurious is their largest competitor. It is a program that provides real-world projects for high schoolers.
Strengths:
- Website is clear and straightforward.
- Users are able to see a pre-made guide
- Clear selection of projects to choose from
Weaknesses:
- Curriculums cannot be edited
- Not clear on how to build project
- No building process and less personal
Rubicon
Rubicon is a curriculum building software used by many public schools. It provides the opportunity to create and share curriculum.
Strengths:
- Rubicon allowed users to search for curriculums from other teachers by grade and subject to get ideas
Weaknesses:
- The process to create a curriculum is very time consuming
- On-boarding is needed to instruct users what to do
- Many new features that are not familiar to users
Trip Hobo
Trip Hobo is a travel planning website. We wanted to look at other "building" programs online to see different opportunities for us in curriculum building.
Strengths:
- Drag and drop feature auto-populates schedule
- Process is very personable, easily customizable
- Users are given a pre-made schedule or can create their own
Weaknesses:
-Descriptions of selections are not easily seen
-Drag and drop takes more effort to create
Now with all of our research we were able to define our problem. We knew that going forward we would have to look at how we can make this process as easy as possible. We thought about how Triphobo and Rubicon did. Rubicon had a much more regimented system that was not easily learnable. Triphobo was much more user friendly in terms of project completion. Using all of this research we had to find the problem that we were solving and what that might look like.
The Problem
The Concepts
Learning to build curriculum
Utilizing the whiteboard to rearrange the beta prototype and add our notes
We realized that if wanted build a tool to build curriculum, we would have to learn how to build curriculum. From our research we learned about the Backwards by Design curriculum building method. We choose to use the Backwards by Design method because this method was used by every teacher and curriculum developer we talked too. There was also strong evidence talking about its success in curriculum development.
The Backwards by Design process starts with :
Learning Outcome - Sidekick would provide a learning outcome, which is the goal for the outcome of the project.
Summative Assessment - a final assessment for how students will show or report what they have learned. For the group projects these would be presentations or reports.
Activities - Lessons or assignments to assure that the summative assessment is attainable.
Learning Objectives - When doing the activities what will the students be learning. For the objectives they start with the phrase, “The student will be able to…”
Alignment with Standards - The learning standards auto-populate based on previously selected options. Learning Standards are created at the state level and are the one part of the curriculum building process.
Resources - Users can choose resources such as videos or newspaper articles for the teacher to use in the curriculum.
My team and I taking apart the curriculum building beta prototype
Concept 1 - Basic Form
Concept 1 was a very straightforward and streamline approach with drop down menus. This concept was the most alike the current prototype just set with the backwards by design process and we wanted to see how users would respond to it.
“I like being able to flick between different sections as I’m working through the curriculum.”
Clear Navigation between areas is beneficial.
"This information is kind of overwhelming. Do I really need contact details for the company?”
Focus on the vital information and structure it more thoughtfully.
“It’s good that I can just go in and change the learning objectives. The less clicks the better”
Editable form field structure was helpful
“To me this is condescending. I know what class I’m planning for.”
Be cautious of undermining teacher.
Concept 2 - Drag and Drop
Concept 2 was an organized framework with drag and drop options. We took inspiration from Triphobo with the drag and drop and wanted to see how users would respond to it. Also in this concept test users have a central page where they could see what was completed and other progress.
“Just keeping track of what’s done and what’s not, it’s nice to have that in front of you. Checklists work.”
Status of building process allowed users to mentally track their work progress
“It feels like an environment that I am working in, rather than just a word document I am throwing together.”
Users liked the idea of having a working environment
“I like that you can drag and drop, feels like I am building something on my own.”
Assisted process to assemble something more complex - teachers like a base template.
“I wouldn’t be comfortable if you just dragged stuff over that you couldn’t edit.”
“Drag and Drop” is effective and quick, but may not allow for easy edibility or accommodate different networks
Concept 3 - FreeForm Alignment
Concept 3 was a loosely structured canvas style concept that would focus on alignment of all materials. This concept featured tabs with the project brief and class brief to the side with a canvas the user would “build” the curriculum in the center. Users would have to complete part of the process for the next part to appear.
“I like being able to use the tabs to get different information while I work on the curriculum”
Tab features allowed for easier access to different information
“Can I drag and drop the standard I want? Or do I have to type it in?”
Confusion over what users would do with standards given
“It is really hard to follow the flow, how do I know when I go onto the next part?”
Flow did not make sense and was found difficult to understand
Prototype Requirements
Going forward we knew that our final prototype would have:
- A sidebar that would contain the class and project brief.
- Drop downs, used to make selections.
- A structured curriculum building area, as well as provide a landing page that displays the projects in progress.
- The backwards by design process would be used.
- A Summative/Final assessment provided somewhere for the users to reference.
A whiteboard and sticky notes were used to organize the results of our concept test
The Design Solution
Insight and iteration
For our user testing we were able to find 5 teachers to test with, 3 in-person and 2 virtually. In the testing users were asked to complete the curriculum building process. Along the way they were asked to tell us their thoughts and what they were seeing. Users would choose an assessment, then choose activities and the learning objectives, then they would choose the standards, finally choosing the standards that would fit with the assessment. After our testing we looked at what the users said.
Closing Thoughts
Future Considerations
Building for certain time lengths - While creating the building product we knew that different projects would need different time lengths. Due to the many differences within districts and teaching, we were not able to accurately design for different time lengths.
Building for different levels of student proficiency - We thought about how this product would work with students of different learning levels and those with a learning disability. In the future we would look more into how the curriculum building process would change with a variety of learning levels.
Populating of custom content and database building - Sidekick eventually wants to have AI created content instead of curriculum developers. We made some design choices based on this, but further research and iteration needs to be put into place for populating content and storing it.
Teacher product and edibility - During the testing we had to remind teachers that why were curriculum developers and not teachers. The teachers platform was something that would be need to be further developed. Looking at how the teacher might edit or change the curriculum and how/if the teacher would be able to communicate with the curriculum developer.
Mobile application - Originally Sidekick thought that this would be able to be done on a mobile application. We found that curriculum developers and teachers preferred to use desktop, but some talked about the idea of a mobile applications. Many teachers talked about using their phone for everything these days. This app would need further development as to how this would work on a mobile device.
Lessons Learned
Content - In our testing content was always an important aspect. Teachers would comment on any of the content and if the content was correct. The content seemed to distract from the concept and the testing. This really made it clear how important writing and content is to a successful prototype. In my further projects I will always be sure to make sure that content is needed for testing. If it is, I will make sure to take time to write correct and thoughtful content.
Being the expert - I was told how being in the UX world, the UX designer will wear many hats. One being, becoming an expert. I began this project not knowing anything about curriculum development. Though after investing time and reaching out to former teachers and curriculum developers, I learned the Backwards by Design process. I did not think I would have to learn the process in the beginning of the project, but I realized how important it is to the empathy process. Understanding how people work, how processes work, and the many pain points that are not initially seen are all apart of the user experience process that I will always use in my future projects.