Project Overview
Background
Press Start Academy operate in the after-school program market within education. It has a fun-first curriculum for children aged 4 to 16. It strives to offer the best learning experience using a 6C approach – citizenship, character development, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity. Through well-designed and structured games, the students can be better prepared for their future.
​
Problem
Physical outputs and assignments are a tangible form deliverable to showcase development and progress to parents, but these do not reflect soft skills and whole-person development.
​
Outcome
Introducing an all-in-one online digital platform that provides parents with comprehensive and organised insights, as well as personalised class recommendation.
6C approach Introduction
citizenship
character development
collaboration
critical thinking
communication
creativity
Interview
To explore parent’s education approach and elicit opinions on PSA, we conducted in-depth interviews with two parents.
Some highlighted Questions:
How did you come across with PSA?
Why would you continue to have your kids studying at PSA?
What parts of PSA program do you like the most?
What kinds of things or skills you want your kids to develop over the years?
What is your comment on the current follow-up email/report after program?
Empathy Map
.jpg)
There are 3 insights
First, parents are not sure about their kids’ soft skills performance.
Now, parents only receive a follow-up email after program, outlining the comments from instructors on their kids’ behaviours throughout the course. Yet, they have no clue as to what soft skills matter to their kids, as well as their kids’ level in each kind of soft skill taught.
Second, they are not able to evaluate their kids’ progress during the learning journey.
Parents do not receive any feedback from instructors after each lesson, and they are curious if their kids only had fun instead of acquiring skills in the game. They lack a consistent and regular progress update of how their kids are learning in an effective way.
Third, there lacks a linkage between different classes.
After each program, there is no way for parents to know what subsequent classes they can choose for their kids that suit them the most, except asking staff in Press Start in person.
Build and Refine
How Might We assist children’s personal/soft skill development for parents to grow them in a better way?
Usability Test with High Fidelity Wireframes
Homepage
Instead of viewing the lesson schedule, they would like to view the soft skills their children have at a glance in the homepage.
Performance
Parents want their kids become motivated to participate and finish the assignment. They also desire to have a short summary on student’s performance
in each lesson. Thus, a progress tracker will be added in order to keep tracking of student progress In a playful way.
Overall Report
For the report part, some parents feel sensitive to the marks. In order to prevent from measuring students’ ability by how is he/she has scored in the lessons and discourage a perpetual race of marks among students, we try to replace marks with 3 level “outstanding”, “great work” , “work harder”. It aims to encourage and motivate students to improve their learning bit by bit.
Final Design
On the homepage, there is a skill summary for each student.
For example, Jayden demonstrated behaviours that showed
high character development, strong critical thinking and creativity.
His strengths are highlighted in the homepage so parents can get a glimpse of how their kids are doing.
There will also be some course recommendation according the strength and weakness of the kid in previous and current course. If Jayden is weak in creating ideas, courses that emphasize on creativity will be shown.
​
The enrolled and completed courses are also displayed underneath for parent’s review.
In the weekly progress page, there comes the essence. There is a sci-fi progress tracker for parents and students to see how far they have made.
After each lesson, parents can see what kinds of skills their kids have demonstrated during the class. They can also take a look on the homework of their kids, and other comments from instructors if any.
We specifically highlight the skills for each task in each lesson, so parents can understand that the program is structured in a way that enables their children to train up different soft skills along the journey.
And finally we have the overall performance report. The top summarizes the level of soft skills of Jayden in terms of 6C. If a certain skill is often highlighted in each week, it will come at the top to be outstanding. If Jayden shows deficiency in other skills, they will come at ‘work harder’ level.
Parents can also review the learning of students in each lesson, and read the final report commented by instructors at the bottom.
Current VS New
​
Without the platform, currently parent would receive a follow-up email after the end of program, having a few paragraphs describing their kids’ performance in general, which are written by instructors.
With our platform, not only can parents have a regular update on their kid’s soft skill performance, they can also easily see the strengths and weaknesses of their kids in the final report. Through knowing what their kinds are strong at and weak in, they are empowered with the information to better focus the kid’s learning in specific areas, so their kids can learn better.
Better still, there is a personalized program recommendation for parents with regards to their kids’ strengths and weaknesses. The system will incorporate the data in each lesson and generate the most suitable classes for each student to enrol in at the end of program.
Impacts:
1.Is the all-in-one digital platform
For PSA (academy), it centralizes assignment submission, weekly assessment, as well as final report writing on one single platform. The workflow for them will be more smooth and convenient.
​
For parents, they are able to learn and track their kids’ performance anytime by visiting the platform, and they are recommended with courses that suit their kids’ strengths and weaknesses at the end of program.
2. It improves the stickiness factor to the academy
Typically speaking, parents enrol interest class for their kids because their kids are interested in the context and topic of the class.
However, with the provision of a structured learning journey and comprehensive report of soft skill development, parents will stick to PSA for subsequent classes because they think it is useful and essential to their kids. Soft skills becomes something indispensable, rather than a bonus.
3. It promotes the soft skill development in Hong Kong.
At present, parents do not place much importance on soft skills of their children. But as time evolves, the 6C becomes an essential skill sets for them in the future.
Evaluate
Feedback:
Our client feel satisfied with our work. It is simple and easy for parents or students to use.
He will take some concept to develop on the next version.
​
Lessons Learned
Interview is so important for us to identify the painpoints of different stakeholders and give us an in-depth understanding of the users’ values, perceptions and experiences.
​
