Xplor is an Australian company that develops software to streamline daily operations for childcare centers. Based on insights from previous interviews, I analyzed. materials, identified key issues, and designed solutions to enhance communication between parents and educators.
What's the problem?
The findings revealed a significant challenge: educators are overwhelmed by distractions from various sources, including notifications and parents reaching out through multiple channels. Even with these constant interruptions, educators emphasize the need for a unified, quick, and direct way to communicate with parents, making this issue particularly complex.
Another major problem is the lack of proper message categorization. With multiple communication methods in place, retrieving past information becomes difficult and time-consuming, forcing educators to search through numerous sources to find what they need.
Lastly, educators highlighted the necessity for a simple and efficient way to send group messages and announcements, revealing a clear gap in the current system.
Consistent Grouping System for Streamlined Parent-Educator Communication
I decided to mirror the familiar grouping used in the main app for organizing children in classrooms. Just as classrooms are often named with playful names like Koala, Kangaroo, or Wombat, the communication tool adopts the same structure. This approach maintains consistency and intuitiveness in the app, enabling educators to easily identify which parents are associated with each group and manage their messages efficiently.
Enhanced Message Urgency Feature for Educator Control
To enhance this feature, a dedicated contact form for parents should include predefined tags or topics to categorize issues. Certain tags, such as 'medical events,' 'illness,' or 'routine changes,' would be automatically marked as urgent, enabling educators to prioritize incoming messages more effectively.
Allowing educators to define message urgency using a toggle button lets them prioritize conversations based on importance and time sensitivity. Crucially, educators maintain control over this feature, preventing parents from marking every message as urgent. This ensures that genuinely urgent messages remain distinct and noticeable.
I created a dedicated mailbox section specifically for community announcements. This space allows educators to share important updates, events, and news with the childcare center community. By using this page, essential information reaches all parents efficiently, ensuring seamless communication.
To effectively manage this project within a tight timeline, I prioritized prototyping the educator's inbox. I planned to revisit and prototype the parent contact forms in the next phase, as additional research was needed to develop that feature.
Looking back on the project, I am proud of the outcome, even though it represents just one part of a large and complex design process. As an intern, I achieved my goal by conducting research and proposing targeted solutions.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Nicha and Mason for their invaluable guidance and the opportunity to work with them.