Teacher Portal Generative Research (Phase 1)

Run concurrently with the Teacher Portal Evaluative Research & Design (Phase 2), this study focused on gathering teacher perceptions of the Puberry website for kids and how Puberry can best meet their needs as a tool to use in their classroom.

The Problem

Puberry wants to initially launch the Puberry website in schools. Although the target user is kids (ages 8-18), Puberry understands that an important player of its success in schools are its primary advocates, on-boarders of the product and tech support: teachers.

  • What are teachers’ current perceptions of the Puberry website in terms of usability and content?

  • How can we provide the support teachers need to effectively advocate and use the product in their school?

  • What does Puberry need to do on the back end to distribute the Puberry kit and student accounts in line with teacher needs?

The Solution

There is a need for a Puberry Teacher Portal that teachers can use to access student learnings, assignments and additional resources to support them when teaching about puberty.

A service blueprint that details what Puberry needs to be doing at each stage of the teacher journey, from entering the Puberry website to implementation, provides action items related to teacher needs.

PROJECT DURATION

3 week sprint

ROLE

UX Researcher

TEAM

3 UX Designers

1 UX Writer

1 Software Engineer

Puberry CEO

TOOLS

Figma, Canva, Asana

Impact

With these generative findings, I advocated for the need for a teacher portal that would enhance the teacher experience when using this product in schools. Since my team found that teachers would be an essential secondary persona in the student’s (the primary persona) journey, as well as an essential decision-maker in the purchase and use of the product in schools, I shared with stakeholders and the CEO that providing support and a way to monitor student learning will make the Puberry website far more enticing to teachers and to school administrations.

As a result, I then led the research for the ideation and design of the Puberry Teacher Portal (Phase 2), which received a 100% satisfaction rate among teachers.

Screener Survey

Goals

  • Screen for participants to interview.

  • Gather information about health and puberty education in schools, as well as gain insights into any pain points educators have concerning this topic.

Background

12 educators representing 6 different schools, both public and private, from 3 different states completed the Educator Health & Puberty Education Survey:

All participants believe students should receive more consistent health education and support around puberty in addition to what is already offered.

All participants believe a gamified health and puberty website would be a valuable added health resource for students.

All of the schools do not offer consistent health education lasting more than 1 semester in middle school and high school.

More than half of the schools don't distribute puberty products.

Some of the schools distribute puberty products only when individual students approach faculty.

Key Takeaways

  • In the educator’s journey during the pre-purchase process, emphasizing the Puberry website as a resource that more deeply explores puberty topics and that can continue to be used outside of health class will be valuable.

  • Emphasize the added benefit of the customizable Puberry Puberty Kit included in the Puberry subscription for each student and how it is accompanied with material to help teach children why and how the products are used.

In-Depth Interviews

Goal

Gain insights into teacher interest in the Puberry products (website and puberty kit) and make the process of purchasing and using the kit and website with students straight-forward and efficient.

Interview Steps

Step 1: Usability tests were conducted with 5 participants with the Puberry website prototype for kids to test initial perceptions and concept of the website as a learning tool for their students.

Step 2: Attained initial perceptions of the Puberry Puberty Kit that accompanies the purchase of each individual account.

Step 3: Interviewed participants on interest in products for their own students and what they would need for purchase and implementation.

Synthesis and Analysis

Trends were discovered to pinpoint teacher needs, such as:

  • Teachers need specific materials for approval from administration and parents.

  • Teachers need support for introducing Puberry to students, as well as how they can use it as supplementary material.

  • Teachers need a simple and respectful way to customize and distribute puberty kits.

Service Blueprint

Pre and Post-Purchase Support

Based off of affinity map takeaways, a Service Blueprint was created to layout what needs to happen on Puberry’s end in order to efficiently service teachers throughout their journey from the pre-purchase process of Puberry subscriptions to supporting teaching with the onboarding of students and implementation.


After the purchase of Puberry subscriptions for students, the teacher receives a survey link that students complete, ensuring they have the opportunity to customize their own puberty kit (to be respectful of their individual needs). Puberry then gathers the information and sends it to the suppliers, who create and fill the boxes to be shipped to the school.

Teachers also receive introductory support slides to help them introduce the Puberry kits and website to students.


Teachers shared they would need the following materials in the pre-purchase process to help convince the administration and parents to purchase Puberry (which will be available on the Puberry purchase website):

  • A website preview

  • Data of added benefits for students

  • Overall curriculum

  • Steps for implementation

Conclusion

It was imperative to include input from teachers throughout the testing and design process since they are the initial access point between the Puberry website and the primary user persona, Chloe (who represents the students). A challenge was incorporating teacher input of the entire subscription, from the Puberry puberty kit, to the website, to current and perceived pain points with puberty education and the Puberry products.

This led to reformatting the usability test scenarios for teachers, focusing on completing the 3 tasks as a way to preview the website in the pre-purchase process, followed by a short introduction to the puberty kit and strategic questions centered around what their next steps would be in order to purchase subscriptions for their school. With the Service Blueprint that this research helped create, Puberry now has a roadmap in which they can clearly see what teachers need and where they need to be active backstage in order to support teachers and schools for long-term sustainability.

Next Steps

Puberry Teacher Portal

In order to bring the journey of the user and the journey of the educator full-circle, adding a teacher-facing portal will offer the teacher value as an educator by:

  • Assigning lesson modules to students.

  • Tracking topics learned and topics students are struggling with, which can influence future lessons for health class.

  • Access teaching support resources.

Other Works