PROJECT OVERVIEW

Immaculate Conception St. Joseph (ICSJ) is a private enrollment, parochial Catholic school with two locations in Old Town, Chicago.

Our client was a marketing consultant and mother of three--all who currently attend ICSJ. She tasked us with optimizing the school's communications and website.

 

PROJECT CONTEXT:  Discovery, Strategy-based solutions, Concept

DURATION:  3 Weeks

TOOLS:  Sketch 3, Google Suite, PowerPoint, Markers, Post-Its

DELIVERABLES:  The discovery, selection and prescription of strategies

MY ROLE:  UX Designer, Researcher, Strategist, Visual Designer


SOLUTION

Through extensive research and discovery, it became apparent fairly early in the project that the underlying problems the school was experiencing were not limited to merely website and communication issues, but in fact involved a reworking of the school organizational and communication culture and the tools that facilitated this.

The insights and others led our team to ideate through the lens of digital and non-digital based solutions.

Our final strategy consisted of a three-pronged approach:


3prong.png

 

 

DESIGN PROCESS OVERVIEW

 

 

 

UNDERSTANDING

Creating and running a private school is not unlike creating and running a startup company: high debt, turnover, people wear many hats, as well as growth and organizational challenges.

To begin research we needed to get a lay of the land. The school's overall communication system and organizational structure needed to be examined.

 
 

SCHOOL COMMUNICATION & INFORMATION PLATFORMS

 

The school uses a website primarily to entice prospective parents. In addition, it includes a portal for currents. The content is informally managed by a teacher and infrequently update

 
 
 

ORGANIZATIONAL MOVING PARTS

 

Two Parishes

 

Two ICSJ Schools

 

Parents, Parent Association

 

Teachers, Administrators

 

Students (Pre-K to 8th Grade)

 

 
 

RESEARCH

To gain an in depth account of user behaviors, needs, and frustrations in regard to the current communication system, we:

  1.   Created and sent out surveys to parents and teachers from ICSJ as well as other schools
  2.   Conducted numerous in-person and phone interviews with ICSJ teachers, parents, and administrators
  3.   Did contextual inquiry to learn how communication was sent and received in the classroom
 
 

ANALYSIS & SYNTHESIS

With the large assemblage of data collected, we needed to make heads or tails of it.

We assigned a Post-It to each data point and made affinity maps based on themed groupings and reoccurring pain points. 

 
4photos.png
 

FINDINGS

  1. Over 50% parents expressed they were not satisfied with the school's current communication system
  2. At the same time, over 75% of parents did not want more involvement with the school 

INSIGHTS

Teachers, parents, and administrators are: 

  1. not tech illiterate--they are time deficient
  2. lacking an effective and concise communication system
  3. overwhelmed due to the shear amount of information, often redundant being exchanged
  4. taking too much time sending and receiving communications, interfering with their essential job duties
 

Families have specific needs and contribute toward making a unique dynamic within each classroom with the teacher. The teachers in turn have their own style of communication that differs from others. These kind of fragmented "micro-ecosystems" have lead to a lack of integration of a unified school body. 

 
 

PERSONAS

After finding key insights through the research, we needed to put a human face on the assembled behavioral patterns. 

To personify the encapsulated research, we synthesized four personas that covered the perspectives of a typcial ICSJ teacher, as well as three kinds of parents: prospective parents, time-strapped parents, and those wanting more involvement. The four personas helped guide our designs for the remainder of the project. 

 
 
 

DESIGN GOALS

Through research and synthesis we discovered that our client's initial goal of optimizing communications and revamping the website was not the underlying issue that needed to be addressed. We were able to distill our essential design goals:

  1. Streamline communications to free up time and alleviate pressure on teachers, parents and administrators
  2. Establish social and communication guidelines with built-in mechanisms for maintenance and follow-through
  3. Consolidate school information and overall communications
  4. Instill confidence and credibility of ICSJ's brand when marketing to prospective families
 

IDEATION

With our personas and design directions in place, we ideated for each persona to solve their unique needs and alleviate pain points

We conducted two types of design studios: one through the lens of digital-based solutions, the other non-digital. 

 
 
 

SOLUTIONS

Through many rounds of ideation sessions we distilled solutions down into a three-pronged approach:

 
 
 

ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTS

An organization can have the best tools, but without the human resources and organizational parameters to dictate best practices of those tools, the organization will not function properly. 

The successful implementation of an LMS and public-facing site would therefore be predicated on the successful launch of organizational products. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

COMMUNICATION MANAGER

ICSJ currently is transitioning a teacher into the role of communication manager. The linchpin to our organizational strategies would aim to leverage their position to bolster and help maintain the newly established communication system and culture. To achieve this, a communication manager would:

 
  1. Train school staff and parents in the new system
  2. Create and update website and email content
  3. Manage social media platforms
  4. Be a liaison to Parent Association
  5. Inform IT consultants of any technology problems
 
 

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS)

LMS is gaining more and more widespread use among academic settings.

Instead of reinventing the wheel by building an LMS from scratch, the wiser (and time-efficient) approach was looking at existing LMS vendors and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each.

We created a chart to assist us in deciding which LMS vendor would accomplish the most toward solving the needs of the four personas.

 
 
 
 

Ultimately, we determined Schoology was the most comprehensive and effective LMS platform.

Unlike other platforms, Schoology is parent-facing, meaning it includes parents in the communication system. It is also teacher and student-facing, and it engages all three groups in the classroom experience. It also looks and operates much like Facebook, which most adults and kids are proficient using.

 

BASIC SCHOOLOGY FEATURES


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PUBLIC-FACING WEBSITE

Our research showed that the current ICSJ website was lacking in a number of areas. Most of all, the website fails to instill confidence in ICSJ's brand of faith-based education.

We created a mock-up of what some improvements could look like:

 

 

To visually instill confidence on a landing page, we focused on messaging ICSJ's tone, content and imagery.

Tone: wholesome, professional, approachable

Content: academically and socially dependable, helpful, informative

Imagery: personable, authentic, humanistic

SPECIALTY SCHOOL WEB HOSTS/WEB DEVELOPERS

ICSJ needed to revamp it's current website. But, the school didn't have much room to budget this investment or have personnel to easily maintain it. Therefore, with these considerations in mind, we determined two companies could best accomplish ICSJ's needs: 

 
  • Website is custom made from scratch to fully solve client's needs
  • Serves all kinds of schools and even school districts
  • School staff can provide insight to developers during construction

 

  • Strong reputation for security and cost efficiency
  • Available templates make maintenance and usage easy
  • Built-in interactive web features