Get Schooled – Case Study

When Get Schooled, a national nonprofit born from Viacom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, received a Google Global Impact Award, they challenged HYFN to build a sticky educational platform for teens while nailing an extensive list of business objectives. Focused on delivering a signature mix of “sizzle and substance” content to low/moderate income students, Get Schooled needed a site that was engaging in UX, design, and strategy while servicing educators, parents, and funders through separate experiences, integration, and reporting.

TEAM

My primary role in the project was to oversee the visual and interaction design of the project. I worked with a user experience designer where he would work on the research and share the responsibilities of creating the wireframes.

RESEARCH

The research was based on findings from research articles, publications, online survey data along with analytics from running version of the site. We gathered information on post high school education trends, fears about college, process with applying, demographic information, support, behavior and technology usage.

KEY INSIGHTS

• Users primary connection at home was through mobile devices

• The top fears about going to the college are:

  • The didn’t feel smart enough

  • It is costly

  • They didn’t know any better

• Student felt overwhelmed with the application process

• Only 21% of families making $40,000 annually have parents with a high school diploma

• Dropout rates are higher in low income families

• Female students think about their future job and educational goals more often than their male counterparts

• Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans and first generation students are at a high risk for not attending college

• Parents are the main factor in the decision of a student to go to college

• Teenagers have a low tolerance for technology that is slow and not relevant to their needs

• Content that is too heavy and requires a lot of reading is a turn off

• 38% can’t go 10 minutes without checking their connected device

THE USERS

There were three users that we wanted to focus on; 1) a user that has no idea on how to get started with process in how to get to college, 2) an underserved student that thinks college isn’t in their future and 3) a go-getter that is knowledgeable about the process.

Goals

• Find information on how to get to get into college, financial aid and other resources

• Get support and encouragement

Frustrations

• Low income students don’t have a mentor to help them apply to schools

• Students feel that content about the process to get into college is hard to find

• The current site was hard to navigate

• Information was hard to find

CREATING A PLAN

After the research phase we started to audit the current information architecture. Then conducted a card sorting exercise to help us develop the sitemap. When the sitemap was complete, the user experience designer created a prototype to test with users.

We also tested different ways to keep the user engaged and developed fun interactive content such as quizzes, games and contests. There was also a large gamification component that help make the experience sticky where the user could earn point to buy real world experiences and prizes.

We also developed a recommendation engine, with the help of the engineers, to deliver the most useful information to the user at a particular time in their high school journey. A high performing senior was going to have dramatically different content than a underachieving sophomore. We did this by weighing different dimensions like the engagement with the site, scholastic performance and their student profile.

VISUAL DESIGN

The design had to light in terms of load times because of the limitations of the hardware found at schools from low income areas but visually appealing enough to keep the attention of a high school student. The brand was bright and lively and wanted to keep that spirit while not distract the user and let the content be the centerpiece. We also learned from the research that families from these socio-economic areas primary connect through the internet through a mobile device and the experience would have to be optimised to work on smartphones.

RECAP

The design was a success and the client offered HYFN with more projects and also introduced us with their other partners. This lead to HYFN’s relationship with Taco Bell. It was also a rewarding feeling to work on a project that made a real world impact on student from underserved communities.

Here are some other outcomes of the project.

• Fast Company ranked Get School in the top 10 innovating companies in gaming

• Nation’s largest digital education community aimed at students

• 8 Million Visits since its launch

• Get Schooled reach over 2,000 schools and over 250k registered teens