A learning management system designed for private tutors.
MarioClass is a learning management system designed for private tutors to enhance the teacher-student relationship, And therefore reduces the likelihood of students leaving.
MarioClass enables tutors to efficiently conduct online lessons for large student groups, providing features that help students retain lesson information.
It should be noted that MarioClass was created as my final project for a year-long UX design course.
This project allowed me to deepen my understanding of user experience design while conceptualizing, designing, and prototyping a solution that addresses the challenge faced by tutors in managing the lack of transparency in students' understanding in private tutoring settings.
At the beginning of the project, I had only the idea for MarioClass - A Learning
Management System for private tutors.
But it wasn't enough, I wanted to validate and refine this project based
on real user needs, So I conducted research using three methods:
Who are the competitors and what do they do?
Online Teaching,
Yes or No?
Who are you Private Tutors and
what are your pain points?
While the first two methods revealed insights from other LMS platforms and
confirmed that
private tutors do prefer teaching online, the qualitative
approach prompted a critical question:
How do private tutors assess their students' progress?
As I mentioned earlier, I conducted research using three methods. Here are the insights from the research that led me to refine the system and define the problem:
I analyzed existing LMS platforms to understand their features, strengths, and weaknesses. I identified two main types of platforms:
Who are the competitors and
what do they do?
Online Teaching,
Yes or No?
The primary difference between these platforms lies in their approach to the
student-teacher interaction experience. I found that the Web Conference
Platform is more suitable with MarioClass.
In addition, I identified a common feature in both of these platforms
While I decided to incorporate all these features, the Recording and
Quiz System
were vital for addressing the problem I aimed to solve.
I conducted a survey with 60 teachers to understand their preferences for online teaching and its impact on their daily lives. The findings revealed several insights:
Most teachers prefer online teaching due to its flexibility and convenience, though a portion still favors in-person teaching, citing difficulties with navigating online platforms.
Many teachers currently teach in group settings, with a majority expressing a preference for large group sessions, although fewer prefer this format online.
Nearly all teachers have experience with online teaching, largely starting due to COVID-19, and many continue to teach online afterward.
Teachers who continue teaching online report gaining more free time between classes and increased earnings.
English is the primary subject taught by a significant number of respondents.
Teachers face challenges such as technical issues, student engagement, and difficulties in assessing student progress.
Online teaching has positively impacted teachers' work-life balance due to increased flexibility, though some report no change or a negative impact due to increased screen time.
While the quantitative research provided valuable insights, the 'Challenges Faced' insight stood out. It led me to develop the assumption that tutors struggle with assessing student progress, a problem they might not be aware of. This guided me to explore this issue further through qualitative research.
I conducted interviews with 10 private tutors to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences with students. The research focused on three main questions:
1. What are the teachers' difficulties?
2. How is a lesson structured?
3. How do teachers evaluate student progress?
The insights from the first question revealed common
surface-level challenges faced by tutors.
Ensuring students are on time, motivated, and cooperative is essential for effective learning. Without these, the learning process can be disrupted
Tutors often handle tasks like scheduling, invoicing, and tracking progress which takes time away from teaching.
Tutors may work irregular hours and manage multiple students and administrative duties, impacting their work-life balance.
Parents' strong emotional investment can lead to excessive involvement, which might disrupt tutoring. Tutors need to manage this to ensure effective sessions.
The second question provided more valuable insights, helping to address
the third question. A typical lesson process structure includes:
I focused on understanding two steps better
By analyzing the structure of a typical lesson, I identified a core issue in the private tutoring environment by focusing on two key steps in the lesson process.
Tutors often struggled to provide a progressive learning experience, as they frequently had to revisit material. Despite understanding during assessments, students would forget lessons due to time gaps between lessons, hindering consistent progress.
A challenge that led to additional pain points:
Ensuring students are on time, motivated, and cooperative is essential for effective learning. Without these, the learning process can be disrupted
Tutors often handle tasks like scheduling, invoicing, and tracking progress which takes time away from teaching.
Tutors often handle tasks like scheduling, invoicing, and tracking progress which takes time away from teaching.
With this insights in head, I developed a problem statement.
Private teachers struggle to help their students progress and improve
their abilities due to
repeated explanations of the same material and a
lack of transparency in understanding
students' grasp of the material.
Using the research insights, I defined user profiles to better empathize with my user groups and prioritize goals according to their needs.
"Sometimes it feels like balancing teaching and family life is an impossible task."
Name: Mor Porati
Age: 33
Occupation: English Teacher
Mor is a full-time English teacher who transitioned to
online teaching during the pandemic. As a married
woman and mother of two, maintaining a work-life
balance is very important to her. Lately, managing
lesson preparation and job dissatisfaction, due to
her students’ difficulty in grasping the material, has
negatively impacted her work-life balance.
Need and Goals:
- Non-Repetitive lesson plans
- Reduced inquiries during free time
- A sense of progressive learning
Fears:
- Managing life around work
- Students dropouts
"Sometimes it feels like balancing teaching and family life is an impossible task."
Name: Tal Mid
Age: 31
Occupation: High School Teacher
Tal is a high school math teacher who also offers
private tutoring for students. During the COVID-19
period, he taught online and appreciated the ease of
meeting with his students. Tal now has a condensed
workday, and managing the administrative tasks for
both his school and private students has become
overwhelming. This has hindered his ability to give
his students the attention they need, damaging his
professional reputation.
Need and Goals:
- Non-Repetitive lesson plans
- Reduced inquiries during free time
- A sense of progressive learning
Fears:
- Managing life around work
- Students dropouts
Building on this user persona, I developed a solution statement that
directly
addresses the identified challenges and needs, ensuring the
design process
is aligned with the user's primary concerns and goals.
A system that enables personal assessment of the student through lesson evaluation, with the option to provide feedback that includes advanced recording capabilities.
With the solution statement in mind, I structured content to fit
user needs logically, and analyzed processes that may be fit.
Eventually, I chose to design a comprehensive feedback process
because it directly addresses the key challenges identified in the
research and provides a solid solution.
This process is built by combining several smaller processes into one cohesive system
Covering the assessment process and ensuring the student has grasped the learning material.
Covering the Time Gaps between lessons, Granting the student the ability to revisit the material and correct his answers.
Below is a flow chart of the exam feedback process focusing on key user interactions
I began sketching by hand the concept of the screens. Although all the screens
were important for the entire solution process, The screen that got most of the attention was the feedback screen.
The concept was changed after the first class representation , below is
digital representation of the first concept called “Steps”
A combination of the questions the teacher wants to give feedback on, and the content the teacher needs to fill in is on one screen.
The logic behind this screen is based on the preceding screen, where the teacher reviews the student's quiz and selects answers for feedback.
The teacher reviews the quiz and selects which questions to provide feedback on.
The teacher reviews the quiz and selects which questions to provide feedback on.
After the first presentation of this project, I received many suggestions for improvement. Most of the suggestions varied, but one was consistent:
"Shorten the process and speed it up by combining screens and automate the system"
The initial process design was longer, confusing, and prone to errors.
I returned to the ideation phase and developed the Unify concept, which integrates both the quiz questions and feedback features into single screen.
Designed with intentional minimalism to focus users’ attention on the test results on the left. The system automatically checks quizzes and organizes questions by type and results for instant clarity. Feedback features on the right are easily accessible and linked to the selected question, streamlining the process.
The teacher reviews the quiz and selects which questions to provide feedback on.
The teacher reviews the quiz and selects which questions to provide feedback on.
A prototype of the entire feedback process, from noticing
the feedback request to submitting it.
This year of UX practice has greatly boosted my skills. Over the past four months working on this project, I’ve learned a lot about user-centered design and project management. This experience has also shaped my identity as a designer:
While understanding business goals is important, the main focus as a designer should be on the user’s needs and problems. By grasping these, I can create designs that effectively solve user issues while aligning with business objectives.
Exploring your assumptions and hypotheses through research will inspire your design and lay the foundation for the ideation phase. It makes the process more engaging, relevant, and easier to focus on.
As humans, we often prefer praise over criticism, but I learned this lesson during my first presentation. Testing solutions early (In my case - presentation) will save a lot of time and rework, leading to more effective and refined designs.
Here I am giving the final presentation of this project. You might not notice, but I was pretty stressed.
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Here I am a few hours later, proudly showing off my new UX certificate. I was very happy.
