Fee management dashboard for small scale tuition teachers
User Research, Information Architecture, Storyboarding, Visual Design, User Evaluation
Solo
6 weeks
Sept 22 - Nov 22
Superteacher is a platform built for independent teachers to help them manage their classes more efficiently. For many years technological adoption for educators has been about using tools that were thought and built for other business users.
Its objective is to create a platform from the ground up and for the Teachers and educators, solving real problems they are facing in Teaching, Management, and Business.
The final solution is a fee management sections on the dashboard that allows teachers to create fee structures for the batches, track all the fee payments and manage the fee status along with the ability to send reminders, mark students paid, get notifications and track scholarship applications. This will improve the platform's efficiency and accuracy of the financial operations and enabling teachers to focus on instruction.
Jump to Final Design
I started by learning more about the product and the industry from the information available on the internet. The education industry has traditionally been slow to adopt new technology, but in recent years, the widespread availability of smart devices and cheap internet connections has changed this landscape. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of technology in education, creating new opportunities for innovation in this space.
The first area of focus is on improving the teaching experience, by providing features such as:
The ability to create and manage multiple batches for coaching or private classes, Scheduling and conducting live classes, and Assigning tests and assignments to students.
The second area of focus is on streamlining the management of classes and students. This includes features such as:
Managing class schedules, course plans, and fee structures for all batches A student relationship management (CRM) system The ability to invite students to specific batches
The final area of focus is on driving growth for teachers and their businesses. This includes features such as:
The ability to create your own app, website, and brand Marketing and advertisement tools Customer relationship management tools to build and maintain strong relationships with students and parents.
I interviewed 6 teachers including my old tuition teachers and family friends who are educators. Through these interviews, I gained insights into the day-to-day challenges that independent teachers face with respect to fee collection and management.
• Tuition teachers track batch fees manually by on paper calculation.
• Despite the difficulty, like forgetting details, they use this due to the simplicity and ease of use.
• 4 teachers said that collecting fees can be a challenging and time-consuming process, requiring them to have a thick skin.
• They deal parents who are unable to pay on time and finding a balance between maintaining good relationships & payment.
• They prefer the monthly fee as it gives predictable and steady flow of income. Also, it easier for parents to pay children fees.
• For teachers accepting installments, they tend to limit to 4 installments because of less administrative burden.
• They often discounts or waive fees for brilliant students facing financial difficulties.
•Late fee submissions are still a common occurrence, and imposing fines is a last resort to address this issue.
The following pain points were identified as a result of analyzing and synthesizing the data collected from the user interviews. These pain points were determined to be the most pressing issues faced by the teachers and were used to design solution later in the process.
Small independent tuition teachers track batch fees manually, leading to potential errors and difficulties in remembering important details.
Collecting fees can be a time-consuming process that requires handling delicate situations with parents who may struggle to pay on time.
Independent teachers face limited options in setting up a fee structure, often relying on monthly fees or limited installments.
Testing eachers have to manage discounts for students facing financial difficulties and deal with the frequent occurrence of late fee submissions, leading to difficulties in maintaining a steady income flow.
Once I had the pain points and insights from the interviews, I then took all of this information and put it on a whiteboard, where I utilized the mind mapping technique to help me break down the problems and come up with new ideas. It helped in visually connecting and expanding on my thoughts, making it easier to see potential solutions and relationships between different problems.
The following pain points were identified as a result of analyzing and synthesizing the data collected from the user interviews. These pain points were determined to be the most pressing issues faced by the teachers and were used to design solution later in the process.
• Using the existing design language
• System should be similar to real world
• Solution focus on teacher side not student side
• Ensure user is able to track fee collection
• Freedom to set and edit fee structure
• Manual control available over payment
• Updates on payment & waiver requests
• Visual tracker and graphs for fee tracking and easy management
• Fee structure setup and edit feature for new batches
• Buttons and icons to manually control of fee status, remove student and reminders
• Notification sub-section to stay informed with updates and student requests
I further explored the details of the features mentioned previously in the information architecture where I designed a flow how user journey in all the direction related to fee tracking and management.
After finalizing the user flow and information architecture, I moved on to the user interface design phase. During this stage, I created sketches to explore potential ways to enhance the existing design and address the previously identified problems. I went through multiple iterations of every component and screen, constantly making adjustments until I was satisfied with the result.
"Bring on the iterations! The more, the merrier! :P"
After several rounds of iterations of sketching and creating low-fidelity wireframes, I came up with the following high-fidelity designs using Figma.
1. Fee Dashboard
2. Fee Structure Setup
a. While creating the new batch
b. After creating the batch
3. Essential Actions
There are two states: Hover state and Multi-Select state to perform the four important actions of the teacher:
1. Send fee reminder to the student
2. Mark student(s) fee paid
3. Remove the student from the batch if necessary
4. Approve or reject student’s request for scholarship or fee waiver
This project taught me a lot as I moved from researching to finally designing. Some of the things I learned from this experience are:
• A teacher has to do a lot more than just teaching in a small scale tuition centre.
• It is crucial to clarify the project scope and focus on addressing issues rather than just incorporating features.
• Through multiple iterations, I discovered the benefits of continuously evaluating and refining my design, which helped me identify and address any weaknesses in my thinking.
1. Combined batches dashboard: We could have a dashboard for teachers to monitor their overall earnings from all the batches combined. This will improve the experience of a teacher by giving an overview of information.
2. Payment details: There is scope to dive into the stages of flow where teachers enter payment details. We could keep it right when a teacher creates their profile or add the details later in the profile tab.
3. Iterations: There’s always room for improvement and more iteration on the visuals might enhance the appeal of the platform.
