Keeping users on top of their tutoring.

The Princeton Review
iOS & Android Apps

The Princeton Review, the standardized test prep company, asked me to provide the UI designs for a new tutoring app. The app would have different versions for three users: students (test takers), parents (observers), and tutors. The challenge was to not only to coordinate flows across all three types of users, but also create a visual language and design system that could work for both iOS and Android phones.

ROLE

UI Designer (Contract)

INDUSTRY

Education

4/2017 - 5/2017

THE CHALLENGES

USER TYPES

Student (test taker): Track their own scores, schedule and manage their own tutoring sessions

Parent (observer): Track their child’s scores, pay for sessions

Tutor: Track all of their students’ scores, schedule and manage all of their tutoring sessions

WIREFRAME HAND-OFF

Consolidating patterns for three user types

The wireframes were already complete and the feature set had been determined, so my job was to understand the flows for each user type.

Wireframes provided by client

I wanted to get a full understanding of all the screens and features so that I could consolidate patterns and screens as much as possible. Repeating and consistent patterns are certainly a best practice that serves the end users, but it would also be more efficient for the dev team if I limited the number of patterns and created a system.

UI DESIGN

Designing for iOS and Android

Because the development team was using Xamarin (a native app framework) to build both the iOS and Android apps at the same time, I wanted to create a common visual language for both platforms, while still staying true to the guidelines and aesthetics for iOS and Material Design, respectively.

PROJECT LEARNINGS

Taking an inventory of tasks

Making a list of all the tasks for each user type helped me audit which screens could be eliminated to avoid duplicate work.

Conversing with developers on how they want to build

If the development team was building in a platform that wrapped their base code natively to iOS and Android, how closely could I follow the guidelines so the apps could be specific to each platform? Because I was working with a remote development team, it was important for me to get an understanding of what was feasible.