Zenith Mind
Free adult education for those left behind
Education tech platform
Case Study
Mobile
Web App
Website
Intro
Student Experience Platform
School committed to inclusivity and educational equity, serving diverse communities and bridging gaps for all students in USA. Zenith Mind is a student experience platform that unites adult learners across many backgrounds into one exciting, successful journey.
Design timeline
2+ years
Design team members
4
My role
As the lead designer for this project, I've been at the forefront, working closely with a team of 4 designers. My pivotal role involves grasping the product requirements from the very beginning, ensuring a solid foundation for our design journey.
Problem statement
Zenith Mind, a community for low-income immigrants and refugees, focuses on breaking language barriers, enhancing digital literacy, and facilitating college degree. The ultimate aim is to empower individuals for better job prospects in the USA
Challenges
Below listed are the challenges we discovered in the initial discovery session with the client
Varied age group
Catering to a diverse age group ranging from 20 to 55 years old, school must adapt its educational approach to address distinct life experiences and learning needs.
Language Barrier
With the majority of students lacking proficiency in English, effective communication and learning become major hurdles, demanding innovative solutions to bridge this linguistic divide.
Diverse student demographics
Serving a student population consisting of mostly low-income immigrants and refugees with low digital literacy presented a unique set of challenges.
Complex educational needs
As a non-conventional school, school aims to equip students with English literacy, facilitate job placement in the USA as non-immigrants, and empower them to lead comfortable and fulfilling lives
Solution and steps
We followed design thinking principles to draft a standard workflow for generating design variants
01
Deep project briefing
02
Jotting existing information architecture and userflows
03
Create a roadmap for design based on product requirements
04
Build a scalable design along with a dedicated design system
05
Design planning and sprint scheduling
Below is the flowchart of how the design team functioned across different stages of the project
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
The purpose of this exercise is to gain deeper understanding of the users using our application. Insights gain from this questions would help to improvise on existing features and implementing ad-hoc features.
Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis we aim to:
Identify pain points and areas of improvement within the existing application
Understand what features are most used and important with in the existing app
How is the adoption of existing app
Quantitative Data
The quantitative data for the application was fetched from PowerBI, Powerschool, Xano data base, Firebase and Analytics. Below is the gist to get started with.
The community school relies on government funding, determined by the daily attendance records of students. The client's main objective is to motivate students to check in for every class and ensure that staff members consistently submit their records.
Attendance marked across
all campuses
250K
Manually
170K
QR Code
40K
NFC
0.35K
Number of staffers
teaching
Staff
500+
Number of students
enrolled
Students
14000+
Using application
Daily active users
34%
App being used across
Campuses
74
Qualitative Questions
For Students
How well are you versed with understanding and reading english?
How easy is it for you to use the attendance system?
What is the mode for checking yourself in everyday?
How much do you feel your digital skills have improved since using the application?
Do you find the local language display in app easy to use ?
What is the most frustrated activity in app curently?
Which feature do you use the most ?
For Staff
How much time, on average, has the automated attendance system saved for you per week?
How satisfied are you with the efficiency of the attendance tracking system?
Do you find it easy to announce information to students via the current flow ?
Can you provide any suggestions for enhancing the application to further benefit students with limited digital literacy?
Do you get entire gist of student profile from the current profile view?
Below are the major goals we set to achieve
Information Architecture
Since the user-flows for the application are quite extensive,illustrating the core flows for the solution as below
Lo-Fi Sketches
One of the many approaches we employ is to pitch initial-level ideas with the client, facilitating a brainstorming session to explore various options. Following this collaborative process, we finalize the chosen concept before progressing to the next step, creating wireframes that delve into the details of functionality and user stories.
App startup-Language selector flow
Text to Speech feature
Wireframes
Below is one in a series of wireframes we submitted to the client, illustrating a complex method for marking attendance for a student. Idea is to cover all the base user stories before starting with final UI.
Attendance submit flow for a student
3. Final UI screens
Highlighting some of the screens we designed
Real-time Attendance Capture
Staff can scan QR codes or manually mark student attendance in real time.
Instant Support with Staff
Dedicated feature for students to request help, with teachers tracking help requests
Task Management
Allows for the assignment and grading of tasks submitted by students.
Handoff to Developers
The school has distributed specific devices and mobile phones across all campus to students and staffers.
Desktop
1440 X 850px
Mobile
390 X 850px
Google Pixel fold device
1020X 850px
Over the past two years, designed over 150 user journeys for 18 modules, encompassing all use cases and edge cases. We have accompanied this with clear design documentation to facilitate a smoother handoff to developers. This process has eventually set a benchmark across other projects.
Standarized Design System
After being involved in the project for over 1.5 years and managing multiple modules and devices, the Design team decided to introduce a project-specific standard design system. This initiative aims to facilitate the expansion of the product over time, ensuring consistency in designs across all products.
01
Grid System
02
Spacing and Padding
03
Primitive, Semantic and component color variables
04
Text styles
05
Iconographic and illustrations
Below are snippets of design guide created over time. The components evolved as new screens were designed.
Challenges
Below are the challenges faced while coordinating with various stakeholders of the platform
Navigating design solutions amidst backend dependencies for seamless integration.
Crafting inclusive designs to overcome digital illiteracy among users.
Ensuring a smooth learning curve for students while developing digital literacy.
Designing with scalability in mind for each module for seamless future expansions and updates.
Process with teams
Twice a week scheduled discovery sessions with Client to discuss future enhancements
Daily standups with entire project team for project updates
Weekly design walkthrough with PM and devs for internal approvals
Monthly design updates with company Manager and head PM
Deployment approvals for every sprint release
The final Cut
Higher user adoption
Improved attendance
Enhanced language skills
Positive user feedback
3600+
Daily Active Users
71%
Uses Chat feature daily
+19%
Accelerated English acquisition.
4.8
Star rating on playstore