PREP
A tutor mobile app design case study
PREP is a mobile app that makes tutor booking accessible, efficient, and convenient for all users by providing a database that allows for discovering, booking, and hosting tutoring sessions.
Overview
Role
Product Design (UX/UI)
Timeline
4 weeks/60 + hours
Tools Used
Miro/Figma/Photoshop
Challenge
Finding a tutor that is right for you can be overwhelming / stressful and lead to poor decision-making when you’re in a hurry to find the help you need. Choosing the right tutor involves finding someone who fits your schedule, budget, learning style, and educational needs. PREP was designed for both the tutor and the student, integrating aspects from both perspectives to make a seamless interface and experience.
Goals
Create an end-to-end application that allows users to find students and tutors configured to personal and educational preferences, which minimizes the chances of poor selection decisions and unfit matches.
Competitive Research
I decided to explore top-rated tutoring applications to compare key features and see what they address. I discovered that almost all tutoring apps provided a basic search and recommendation structure geared towards students. As I looked further, it seemed these apps were specifically tailored to students rather than both students and tutors. No apps offered free visibility for tutors trying to market themselves to find students. These apps also took a large percentage from tutors’ client bookings. I also found that the large majority of these apps did not include parents or guardians in any part of the booking process.
User Personas
Hanna wants to tutor outside of her part-time job and university classes to get a head start on paying off her student loan debt. Hanna excels in multiple languages, but English not being her native tongue puts her at a disadvantage when it comes to teaching. While paying off debts is the main motivating factor behind becoming a tutor, Hanna also wants to help others but is finding difficulty searching for the right tools to find prospective students and communicate with them efficiently.
Carson is a husband and father of two young children who recently decided to return to college and finish his degree. Being the sole financial provider for his family, he has little time to schedule tutoring sessions between school, work, and family. He knows he needs all the help he can get, so finding a tutor has become a big priority to him. Carson knows with his tight schedule he cannot afford the time to meet with a tutor in person and wants to find a tutor who can host online sessions. Carson uses a smartphone for work calls and emails, but has nearly no experience with mobile interfaces or how to book appointments through apps.
User Persona Scenarios
After creating my personas, I decided to place them in different scenarios to demonstrate the product’s functionality and ability to validate the users’ needs and concerns.
Ideation
Using the persona developments and realizing what solutions would bring the most value for my users, I translated certain needs into key features. I created a product feature roadmap to outline specific app features.
Due to project limitations, I focused on prioritizing features that would be most needed in a tutoring app according to my primary personas.
Using data collected from competitive research, along with guidance provided by the personas and priority table, I created a panel of basic wireframes showcasing key features.
Onboarding Process Wireframes
Home Screen Wireframe
Booking Wireframes
Usability Study
After implementing key features within the low fidelity prototypes design, I conducted a usability study with five participants. Participants were not given a specific flow to follow, but rather were told to book an appointment by whatever means possible. I conducted the study this way to gauge the users’ organically chosen paths, rather than pre-determining paths for them to follow. In concluding the study, I asked participants a few basic questions to determine their overall feelings, concerns, and needs.
While overseeing participants using the prototype, I noticed all five participants chose to look into the recommended tutors section immediately after the onboarding process. Participants also displayed interest in the subject categories and the bottom navigation, leaving the drop down menu untouched for the entire duration of the study.
After the follow-up questions, I organized the participants responses.
Final Design
Based on the feedback from the usability study, I created a high-fidelity prototype that provided solutions for the needs and concerns of the participants.
View Final Prototype
Takeaways and Next Steps
I started this project as a challenge to design for social good with the idea of community in mind. While I was doing competitive research for this project, it appeared that all the tutoring apps currently on the market have all their bases covered with key features. The challenging aspect of this project was developing an innovative and useful function that would make this app unique. Aside from the challenge, it felt incredibly rewarding designing an interface meant to help a large community of people.
If I didn’t have time constraints on this project, I would implement the last prioritized function in my product feature chart. Although most available tutoring apps use third party apps like Skype or Zoom, to host tutoring sessions, I believe going a step further and creating a session hosting function within the PREP app would set it apart from the other apps on the market.