The Client

Xplor is a fast-growing educational technology company focused on childcare services. They automate centre administration so that administrators, educators, and parents are able to focus on future-proofing their children with quality education and creating a conducive environment for growth.

The Objective

When looking for childcare centres, parents often spend a significant amount of time researching - they ask their network for recommendations, drive around their area, and go online to look for reviews. As a result, a lot of their free time is eaten up by this exercise instead of spending more quality time with their children before they go back to work. All this, and yet they are still unsure whether the centre is right for their children's needs.

This project aims to create a solution that will help parents find the most suitable childcare centre for their children, and for childcare centres to be visible to more parents and reach maximum occupancy.

The proposed solution needs an end-to-end prototype that has been tested with users.

Our Process

Tools

We used the following tools to conduct the entire UX process:

• Otter 
• Google Forms, Docs and Sheets 
• Facebook Ads (to recruit participants)
• Miro
  

• Whereby
• Zoom
  
• Figma
• Trello

My Role

I worked with two other UX Designers on this project. Although I was heavily involved in designing and prototyping, I took the lead in research and usability testing. In addition, I took on the role of project manager making sure that we set daily goals that each team member understood and worked on. I also communicated with and managed client expectations.

Research

We hit the ground running by conducting a stakeholder interview after we received the brief.  On Day 2, we dove right into interviews by speaking with parents, educators and childcare administrators from all over Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs.

This was made possible by a supportive client who provided us with access to some of their actual users. We supplemented this by recruiting more participants via guerilla interviews, Facebook ads, surveys, and going on tours with centre administrators.

Primary Personas

We recognised that there were 2 primary user types that we were trying to solve a problem for, and that our own research validated the client's parent persona, Steph Darrow. We decided to use the same parent persona for this project but we focused on her journey as she looked for a suitable centre for her child.

Customer Journey Map

We illustrated Steph and Lisa's current journey and identified their respective pain points and areas of opportunity.

Wireframes

After ideating and identifying the Minimum Viable Product, we sketched and built an end-to-end low fidelity prototype.

The features included in the prototype were based on the biggest pain points and opportunities that we uncovered from our research.

Usability Testing

To validate our low fidelity prototype, we tested with 7 users.

This was conducted via guerilla and moderated remote testing. After-testing interviews were carried out as well to gain better understanding of our users and their behaviour.

Usability testing resulted in 2 iterations that showed search, review and dedicated pages take precedence over other features.

The Big Idea

Xplor Space is an online platform that speeds up the search for suitable childcare centres for busy parents. It also provides a way for childcare centres to attract enrolments and increase their occupancy by providing a customisable web page without sign-up fees. This is a service that would otherwise not be available to some smaller centres, thereby providing a level playing field for everyone.

As we got deeper into the project, we learned that this product was already in the client's pipeline of products. Fortunately, the client gave us the freedom to run with it and let our research take us where it would. 

Finally, when designing the interface of our high-fidelity mock up, we made sure that we followed the Xplor style guide for branding consistency.

Homepage

Because parents are time-poor and would like to spend what little available time they have with their children, we designed the homepage to make it easier for parents to conduct their search.

The homepage allows parents to enter only the most relevant information during their search in order to keep the process quick and easy. After entering and selecting the right information, they will then be directed to a listings page.

Our research showed that childcare administrators have hectic schedules as well. To address this pain point, we designed the homepage to allow them to log in from the homepage just as easily as parents can. 

Childcare Centre Results Page

After initiating the search for childcare centres from the homepage, parents land on this listings page where they are able to see a list of centres based on their requirements. 

There is a map on the left-hand side that shows childcare centres in the area. We placed a map there as research showed that location is the most important consideration parents have when deciding which childcare centre to use. The map also allows them to search for centres while moving their cursor around. This makes it easier to locate options in their preferred areas.

On the right-hand side is a list of centres that provides quick relevant information such as ratings and daily rates. Parents consider these information as important factors in their decision-making process as shown in our research.  This page also allows parents to compare centres to help make the decision-making process much easier and faster. 

Dedicated Childcare Centre Page

Parents also put a lot of importance on the right "vibe" when the visit centres and speak to centre workers. To address this need, we designed this page to offer additional valuable information so that parents get more in-depth knowledge about a centre such as who the administrator and educators are, how long they have been working there, trading hours, and what other parents are saying about the centre's programs and service. 

Once they are ready to visit, the centre's operational hours and an option to book a tour from this page will make the booking process easier.

Centre administrators are able to update this page quickly whenever they want and without the need to hire coders. This allows them to highlight different values or activities depending on the season or the needs of their students and local community. 

Conclusion

On Day 12, we presented our work to the client twice. The first one was in front of the CEO, Product Team, and Dev Lead. We then got invited to do the second presentation during the weekly company stand-up on that same day.

Learn more about Xplor here

Takeaways

• Research is essential in order to understand the problem and create designs that will make people want to use our solution. 

• Timebox everything. It is easy getting caught up in research but we need to know when to move forward in the UX process. Designing a solution and then testing it with users as quickly as possible will point us to the right direction so that we could come up with better and more valuable iterations.

• Setting goals and getting everyone on the same wavelength makes the process run smoother. This has been particularly true for this project, having only 12 days to complete the challenge. Constant communication within the team and with the client kept us on track with our goals.