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School of Wonder
Providing educators with amazing curriculum they don't have to think about.
I JOINED THE SCHOOL OF WONDER TEAM SEVERAL YEARS AGO WHEN THEY FIRST LAUNCHED.
It was during my graduate studies. They needed an illustrator, and I needed work. Then this year, they reached out to me about collaborating on a new project.
The School of Wonder creates immersive experiences in NYC where children become adventurers who embark on imaginative and real journeys following a story.
They have a database of learning experiences and curriculum they've written since the start of their business and they wanted to add an e-commerce feature where they could offer their services for sale.
THE TEAM GOT TOGETHER TO BRAINSTORM HOW TO PACKAGE THE CURRICULUM.
There were a lot of sticky notes involved. We solidified School of Wonder's vision, determined who the target users would be, and what kind of content was necessary for the intended audience.
We also researched some of the competition to see how could set ourselves apart.
And then we realized, there really isn't much competition. User research revealed that educators--whether it's school teachers, after school teachers or homeschool providers--do not have a solid education platform where they can obtain good curriculum. Many educators resort to Pinterest or Youtube to garner ideas, and when they can find something worthwhile, they don't have the time to spend inventing the wheel. What if they could just look up good teaching like we look up
SO WE CHANGED OUR MIND.
The team decided they wouldn't just add an e-commerce feature to the website. Instead, they would transform the entire website into an e-commerce platform where educators could simply get resources they need for their classrooms.
meet mikaela.
meet isaiah.
I relied heavily on iconography and visual cues to communicate possible courses of action. If there's anything I learned as a teacher, it's that kids don't read directions.
The decision to use muted neutrals punctuated by sparks of red was made for the sake of brand presence. I balanced it with solid white backgrounds and monochromatic illustrations, making sure colors and typography met the highest accessibility standards.
My main concern with low to mid fidelity iterations was creating a smooth flow in the process of navigating.
Selecting a topic will take them to a separate page dedicated to courses that relate to the desired theme.
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Here are some things that worked and didn’t work during usability testing, as well as some ideas for change.
WHAT WORKED
- Brand consistency; users could tell each screen belonged to the rest of the app
- Self-explanatory navigation bar, clear iconography
- There was always a way to navigate to a page, even it was via search bar
WHAT NEEDED WORK
- Some of the taxonomy didn't make sense when put into practice.
For ex, my initial term for social media feed was “explore.” Although it works for an app like Instagram, my users kept trying to use it to search course topics, which of course, wasn’t helpful.
- Books used to live in the Academy tab, and some users were confused about the difference between them. So I separated them into 2 tabs.
- Users weren't utilizing a navigation menu on the top of the home page, so I got rid of it and spread it all out in the main nav bar.
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As a designer, I was raw and semi-defined, and this was where I learned to listen for empathy, hone in on my common sense, and believe in my decisions as a designer.
This project was met with a lot of time and resource constraints. I had deadlines for each aspect of the process and I had to prioritize which features to flesh out.
I would also love for Maven to develop partnerships with schools to collaborate with school teachers and incorporate some of Maven's learnings into the curriculum. I can see how Maven's instructors could be guest teachers in classrooms and can offer great value towards schools' efforts to incorporate developments like social-emotional learning, which is a topic public schools have been trying to implement for some years now without being sufficiently equipped.
