KidSystems
Overview
KidSystems is a web application that allows school-related parties to track and manage student participation in educational activities for evaluation and reimbursement purposes. The application can store large volumes of data and extract it in the form of various reports.
The Business
HTA Consulting has been working in the U.S. educational market for a long time, providing government and commercial organizations with useful tools to work with statistical information. KidSystems was created for real-time collection and analysis of data concerning students' educational activities before, during, and after school — attendance, standardized test scores, demographics, and special designations.
Targeted for use by site and district coordinators, evaluators, and system administrators across the U.S., the application should consolidate data from real-time regional databases to make the educational picture complete. Statistical analysis features in the form of various reports and surveys conducted should be provided. Moreover, since this product will be used by a lot of people who aren't very computer savvy, it should not only look good but be easy to learn and effectively use. Since usability of KidSystems was an important factor, HTA Consulting turned to UI Modeling Company for guidance.
The Solution
The project started with the analysis phase: who are the users of the system? What are the uses of the data application? Who needs this data and why? Answers to these questions resulted in personas — a set of documents that describe key user types with their goals, experiences, and social backgrounds. Adding a business goals analysis here gave us the vision for how to put the necessary functionality into the user interface. As a result of this analysis, page flows and navigation maps were created to form a lineup of KidSystems pages and a detailed plan for the user interface.
The main phase of the process — wireframe creation — was started after the plan was complete. UI Modeling Company placed special attention on reports, a key function of KidSystems. Looking at the creation and presentation of reports in connection with user goals, this allowed us to make the report function easy and clear. And although only the most necessary information and actions are presented to users, they can easily reach any other content in the application's huge knowledge base. To find out if there were any usability problems, an internal usability test was conducted. As the result of this test, report generation tools were improved.
The rest of the process was more about writing than design; use cases and software requirement specifications were created. All the deliverables were cross-referenced and described in detail. One of the aims of these specifications was to create comfortable and detailed reading for project management and development teams.
The Result
As the result of the new user interface, HTA Consulting received a detailed vision of their KidSystems product from the user's side. The well-defined user interface allowed users to work effectively with vast amounts of data. And don't forget about learning — the UI also helped non-tech-savvy users to understand how to use the application.
Second, the client was well prepared to start the development process. Developers had clear instructions for how to implement an effective and usable user interface, and project managers were able to evaluate precise costs and times for their development and marketing staff to prepare for a product launch.
The ROI
By creating the user interface design and production manual up front, HTA Consulting saved money on development. Savings on support costs were also important because of the ease of learning for non-tech-savvy users.
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Project Overview
Not available online
Client
HTA Consulting (USA)
Industry
Education
Project
Web Application Design
Project Duration
3 weeks
Services Applied
User Interface Design (Production Manual)