Online platform that connects teachers and k-12 learners. They provide group classes over live video chat with fellow classmates and teachers.
Business Goal
Outschool’s teacher application had a 70% drop-off rate which impacted the growth of the company. The prime goal was to increase the user engagement and reduce the drop-off rate for the new teachers.
Challenge
Our challenge was to design a onboarding process for the teacher’s application
Role
Led interaction and visual design for the teacher’s onboarding process. Conducted usability testing.
Worked with Lead Product Designer. Collaborated with Operations, Engineering and Product Team.
Outcomes & Final deliverables:
Design is live on the platform!
An engaging and transparent onboarding process for teacher’s application which provides
- Provides the real-time information about their current state and the total no of states during the background check process
- Teachers feel welcomed with the usage of platform preview videos, articles, and friendly language
- Shows them the unique offerings from Outschool to the teachers
Design Process
In the working we used slightly modified version of the Stanford design thinking process.
Analyze
Pain point 1: Lack of transparency with disparate process
Submit Application
Background Check
Link To Teacher's Dashboard
After submitting the application their is Thank you message with no further details
The teacher receives the process of background check information via Email. No details are shared on the Outschool Profile page. The teacher has no clue about the no of steps on the background check, time required to complete the process.
After the completion of the background check teacher receives the email to proceed to the dashboard page.
Pain point 2 : No user engagement
After teachers submit their application they are stuck on the thank you message page. All the excitement of a new teacher is lost. After this page, there was no communication from the platform’s side.
Pain point 3 : No interaction
After completing the background check teachers proceed to the dashboard page. The process doesn’t have any product walkthrough or introduction tutorials. It lacks the motivation for the new teachers to continue on the platform.
Competitor Analysis : Implementing best practice
We studied the supplier side platforms including Airbnb, Uber, Udemy, Skillshare to understand important parameters:
The language used felt very welcoming
Most of the platforms had the product walkthrough so that the user could get better idea of the product before reaching the dashboard.
Use of timeline or interactive quiz to increase the user engagement
Define: How might we improve the teacher's onboarding experience that helps them find their application status and bring the right content?
Ideate
With the clear understanding of problem statement we began with sketches and crazy 8s:
We recognized onboarding page should consist of 3 important sections: Application status, Resources for the teacher and Schedule a call with the operations team
Prototype: Creating a transparent and user engaging onboarding process
We began work on the prototypes by translating the lo-fi wireframes to hi-fi mockups.
Transparent application status shows user background check status & total time required to complete the process
Initial Design | Progress bar
Final Version | Timeline
Engaging content increases the user engagement and decreases the teacher’s drop-off
Initial Design | Card Layout
Final Version | Playful design
Usability Testing
- Loved the design and the content presented during the background verification process.
- It clearly shows the current state of my application process and the total time taken.
- The resources remain the same during each stage of background check.
- Experienced teacher’s were looking forward to create additional content.
Delivery
“I am impressed with the design, we will be working on implementation soon!” -Jing, Outschool Design Lead
Learnings
Engineering Team:
Helped to understand the development constraints like “Edge case for creating content in the application process”, “Connecting the platform with background check process”
Operations Team:
Their feedback was useful while coming up with final design of the application states. Collaborated with them to understand the required information hierarchy.
Lead Product Designer:
Working with an experienced designer helped me to understand the importance of implementing every step in the design process, attributes of responsive design, accessibility.
