Parent Hub
An app for great conversations, parenting tips,
and insights into your child's learning.
A case study on the parent app for PlayShifu,
that provides personalized insights from
STEM games for your child.
24k+ users
overview
PlayShifu is an Edtech company that designs AR and STEM-based toys and educational games for children. The products engage students in curriculum-aligned learning with hands-on play experiences.
role
As the designer on this project, my role was to design an app for PlayShifu
where parents could monitor their child's learning, and receive updates on their progress and achievements. Throughout this process, I led the design initiatives and collaborated with product managers, data analysts, content writers, and developers.
Design Process
I used the Double Diamond framework to guide us through the design process for building this app.
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The Discovery stage included:
1. Desk Research
2. Field Research
3. Brainstorming
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discovery
Starting off with desk research, I studied E-learning companies and schools that have parent app products to understand the purpose, functionality, and user base.
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My goal here was to understand where the gaps and opportunities lie, and how we could use this to design our own parent app.
user research
For the user research, both parents and educators were interviewed since it was essential to gather insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points.
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Based on the interviews, the following pain
points were highlighted:
Lack of information on
their child's learning journey
Even though the parents are aware of their children spending time playing STEM games, there's no way to understand what they have learned
Don't receive
constant updates
Unlike PTAs and report cards sent from the school, there is no way of receiving similar updates on this curriculum-aligned learning
No way of knowing
the gap areas
Similarly, parents don't know which skills
their child needs to work on, and which skills
they've mastered in this process.
Don't know how to actively engage in their journey
Parents want to spend quality time with their children playing these games, and also celebrate their victories- but they don't know how to do that
define
User Goals
1. Educational Engagement
2. Personalised Learning
3. Progress Tracking
4. Learning Resources
5. Ease of Use
6. Community Support
After the research stage was complete, it was time to narrow down the research findings and data and summarise the
user and business goals this product
would focus on.
Business Goals
1. User Retention
2. Improving engagement
3. Brand Loyalty
4. Data-driven Insights
5. Cross-selling Opportunities
6. Scalability
Problem Statement
“Is my child’s development where it is supposed to be?”
is a common question that pops up in almost every parent’s mind.
Concerned about the balance between school, playtime, and screen time,
they face a challenge today in keeping track of their child’s learning progress.
Problem Solution
A comprehensive solution designed to alleviate the concerns of parents regarding their child's learning and development. With a focus on STEM games, the app empowers parents to monitor and actively engage in their child's educational journey.
Parent Hub by PlayShifu is an app designed to provide a platform for parents to see
insights and achievements from their children's games. It provides real-time updates,
allowing parents to gauge their development and identify areas for improvement.
Parents can join their children in their learning journey through the app,
celebrate achievements, and provide guidance and support.
App Overview
User Personas
Two user personas were created that represent the
target group. Keeping them in mind helped in the
decision-making process later on.
develop
While developing the app, it was important to collaborate with developers from the beginning as we were able to discover any technical limitations in the initial stages.
Ideation
In the ideation stage, I explored different ways of encouraging engagement for parents, as well as sharing achievements.
I also tried adding features like a to-do list, mood tracker, personality tests in the app but since these were nice-to-have features, we did not go ahead with them.
Wireframes
While working on wireframes, various ideas for parent-child interaction and sharing achievements were worked on.
However, for the Insights section, the core focus was on data-based metrics and how to provide bite-sized information to the parent at every intersection.
Sitemap
A visual representation of the app to provide a clear overview of its navigation and content organization-
Features like learning progress, achievements, playtime tracker, preferences, strengths, and weaknesses were focused on here.
Design System
The overall design language of the app has to be in sync with the PlayShifu brand language. Keeping this in mind, the design system was built to provide a delightful and enriching experience both kids and parents can experience.
Colour Palette
Buttons and Cards
Home/Skill
Overview/Card
Milestones/Card
Typography
Iconography
Icons
Skills
Sub-skills
App UI
Splash
Onboarding
Skills- Overview, Progress, Milestones
Banners
deliver
Once the app had been delivered, it was important to gather
user feedback, and monitor some key metrics like user retention and look out for drop-offs.
The app went through multiple iterations where existing features were edited and a new feature called Community was added.
We also monitored cross-selling numbers to see which products were being sold through Parent Hub.
reflect
The latest update of Parent Hub received positive feedback from our users. We saw a decline in the drop-off rate as well as an increase in the number of users.
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Looking back, there are a few learnings I took away from working on this project:
1. Collaborate with developers and product managers from the initial stages
2. When building a new product, focus on a couple of must-have features rather than a few nice-to-have features
3. Keeping scalability in mind while designing is going to benefit both the users and the company​
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