KUBO - showcase | Titus Kartika

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A school management software to help teachers in isolated Gambia schools to work more efficiently

2022 • UX research • UX design • UI design

Overview

My volunteering time for KUBO wasn’t just about design project. It was an adventure I’ll never forget. I got a fun opportunity as UX UI Designer to optimize KUBO, a school management software that works without internet connection.

This powerful tool helps teachers and school staff in The Gambia isolated areas to manage and analyze their students' scores and data in more simple and efficient way. Seeing KUBO make a real impact on users day-to-day challenges was incredibly fulfilling. ☺

Specific

When: May 2022 - December 2022
Scope: I redesigned some parts of the software.
Constraint: software on desktop
It's a volunteer project.

Goals

To make the software more intuitive for users (teachers and school staff).

My roles

UX/UI Designer
UX Researcher

Team

1 Project Manager
1 UX/UI Designer
4 Developpers
3 Marketers

Tools

Figma
Miro

Output

✔ 3 new features:

feature to filter students based on certain categories
dashboard to see overview of school administration
freature to track student progress fast

✔ More intuitive experience

✔ Design documentation

Outcomes

✔ 3 new features that help school staff working more efficiently

✔ School staffs are less dependent on their colleagues

✔ Design documentation that allows easy handover to developers and a new UX UI Designer.

Process

Problem

Research

Solutions

The current situation

Even when KUBO operates, school staffs are still overwhelmed with some manual tasks

With expensive and weak internet, teachers and school staff in The Gambia have no choice but to rely on paper for almost everything. Manually analyze students' scores, track students' progress, sort students, and manage school administration. Slow and tiring process. Worst of all, when floods occur. It destroyed the written records, adding their frustration.

Though KUBO has eased some challenges especially data entry, teachers and school staff were still overwhelmed with some administrative tasks. Consequently, they still hardly focus on the main task, which is teaching.

A gambian teacher is teaching in the classroom in Albreda, an isolated area in The Gambia

The Gambian pupils in isolated area, Albreda

Learning activities at Albreda school.

Lack of electricity and internet.

Users' tasks = users' pains

Imagine your job descriptions were some headache-including activities.That's exactly what I discovered during face-to-face interviews and usability tests with KUBO users.

Here were what slow them down:

🔍 Filtering students manually

Users still create student lists based on certain categories manually, either on paper or using offline computers, which is time-consuming and inefficient.

📊 Analyze students' progress manually

To track and analyse student progress is still done manually, making the process slow and time-consuming.

📅 Track school activities manually

To track school activities and administration, users still do it manually through papers-based book and external platforms.

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Some students' scores and school administrations are written manually on paper.

Exploration

Research: usability test & interview

Before my visit to The Gambia, Suwaibahtou, the amazing headmaster of The Swallow School shared a worry with me on video call."Our teachers were overwhelmed by manual student sorting". So, I came up with 2 questions in mind:

What categories should be on students' filter feature?

What other tasks that users still do manually and exhaust them?

To dig deeper, I interviewed 4 teachers and 1 headmaster. And guess what? Every single one felt overwhelmed by manual student sorting. They have to put so much effort into sorting students by age, language, and gender. Wheatehr for school activities, events, administrations, and special needs.

Here are the categories they often need to filter:

4 teachers need to group students by age
3 teachers by language
2 teachers by gender

They also struggle with:

Manually reviewing school activities to prepare their to-do list
Identifying quickly the students with low scores in certain subjects, in order to prepare lessons and extra supports for them
Using KUBO software. Some depend on others for navigate
Manually analyzing student performance.

The steps

Step 1

DETERMINE GOALS

To understand the process how users find students based on certain categories
To understand what features KUBO can improve and provide to help them to complete tasks?

Step 2

DEFINE TARGET USERS

Teachers in The Swallow school and Albreda school
School staff in The Swallow school and Albreda school
Age: 25-55 years old
Has a computer or laptop
Doesn't have a computer or laptop
Genders: all genders
English speakers
English speakers and local language speakers
Ethnicity: all tribes in The Gambia

Step 3

WRITE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How often do you use a computer or laptop?

Where?
What do you do on a computer?

2. How often do you use KUBO platform?

3. Let's say, you need to find all students who are 9-14 years old and speak the Mandika language. Can you show me how you find them on KUBO? Is it easy or frustrating?

4. Our team plans to add a filter feature to help you to find students with certain categories. What categories should exist? Such as grade, tribe, language, and what else?

5. What do you expect KUBO to help you more?

Step 4

RECRUITE PARTICIPANTS

5 participants are chosen based on the requirements we had defined. To respect confidentiality, I don't show their real name and age.
Isatou, 42 years old headmaster of a school in The Gambia , has a personal laptop and personal wifi to work and do personal activities
Aja, a 33 years old teacher in an isolated school in Albreda who doesn't have a laptop and still learn to operate the KUBO platform
Muhammad, a 50-year-old teacher in an isolated school in Albreda who doesn't have a laptop or computer, still follows training on how to operate a computer
Ousmane, 27 years old, lives in an isolated area in Albreda, doesn't have a laptop or computer, and follows training on how to operate a computer.
Adame, 47 years old teacher, lives in an isolated area, doesn't have a laptop or computer, and has followed training on how to use KUBO.

Overcome the cultural barriers to get honest feedback

Getting honest feedback from Gambian participants took more time. I compared it to what I experienced with Europeans people in my other projects. I noticed Gambian participants tend to be very polite and might avoid critical feedback, as they see it as rude.

When I tested KUBO with Gambian teachers and a headmaster, they often said everything was good, but they struggled to accomplish tasks. So I slowed down to build trust and create more safe space for open communication. I assured them that honest feedback, even if it was negative, was crucial for improving the platform and making it helpful for their work. Little by little, I got their trust and they were open and honest to give feedback.

Challenges I faced

Our new normal: chaos

We came to The Gambia with schedules for 14 days. But every day, I laughed at our schedule. Everything ran late. Flat tires, a broken taxi, waiting for another taxis, and the ferry that came late.

Having breakfast was like an adventure. We asked the local where to find a shop and we ended up following him to do his house tour, listening to his family story, and seeing his peacock.

Walking around? It's such expeditions. Some random Gambians followed us and asked for our phone numbers or money. Some nice locals invited us to have tea and chat. The red dust got everywhere: my bag, my clothes, and inside my nose. The proper internet connection we had was in our homestay in the capital city, Serrekunda.

This kind of randomness has become our new normal in The Gambia.

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Brainstorm & insights

Back in Belgium with a super-fast internet connection and a fresh brain full of ideas, I dove into the brainstorm.

The next question that popped up in my head:

What features and elements to help KUBO's users?

The aim

I collect insights from similar products on internet because I wanted to find out what features commonly exist in the school management platforms. Also, to find inspirations how these platforms handle the 3 frustrations of users to:

filtering students
tracking progress
and to track school administration in a fast way.

Competitors

Features & elements

We currently don't find any competitor that provides free software (digital platform) without internet connection for schools in isolated areas.

But, KUBO works similarly with prepaid school platforms, such as these 3 platforms.

SMP (School Management Platform)
Laravel School Management Platform
Power School

During my observations on those school management softwares, I discovered some elements and features that could be added on KUBO platform to help teachers and headmasters, addressing their ongoing challenges.

Those are:

Overview or dashboard of the activities and administration of the school
On the student page, there is data about their parents occupation, blood group, and someone who can be contacted if there's urgency matter
On the menu, there are: academic calender
Add photos of each student and teacher.

User personas

After interviewing KUBO users, I created 3 user personas to represent KUBO's users with different backgrounds and needs. From tech-savvy to old-school teacher, these personas helped us to design with real people in mind.

Isatou

42 years old

headmaster and teacher

lives in Serrekunda

Pains:

To overview administration of schools, she needs to open it in several platforms.

Goals:

To know and analyse fast the school administration and actvities
Able to know all features in Kubo platform

Ida

35 years old

teacher

lives in Serrekunda

Pains:

To track her students' progress, she needs to open each student's profile and analyze it manually
Still learning using computer (lack of digital skill)

Goals:

Quickly evaluate her students progress and then adapt her teaching methods effectively.

Ahmed

50 years old

English teacher

lives in Serrekunda

Pains:

Still learn how to operate computer, newbie in digital
Struggle to create manually a list of students who speak Wollof and have bad scores in English lessons

Goals:

Spend more time preparing and delivering extra English lessons.
Use KUBO independently without relying on others.

"How can I design KUBO works good in isolated areas?"

With the constraints KUBO has currently: operates in isolated areas with weak and expensive internet connections, I came up with a question:

Around the same time, I attended a webinar and read some articles about sustainable design in UX UI. It opened my eyes that the sustainable design principle can help me in designing KUBO. It's about creating digital products that are efficient and also accessible in any condition.

The strategy includes:

Minimalist design by reducing unnecessary elements, animations, and heavy graphics
Dark mode
Prioritize essential features: focus on features that truly matter for the users.

These strategies do more than declutter the interface, but also reduce the power consumption, which is crucial in areas with unstable electricity.

Turned out, designing a digital product for isolated areas is not a limitation. For me, it’s a design challenge I’m totally in 💪✨

Key insights

💡Simplify the process of admin tasks will help teachers focus more on teaching and help students.

💡 Provide an efficient way to sort students by ages, languages, tribes, and genders. This can save users' time and reduce frustration in organizing regularly school events, activities, administrative needs, extra lessons, and special needs.

💡 Provide an efficient way that allows teachers to identify quickly students who need extra support. This will help them preparing quicker extra lessons for students who have low performances.

💡 Provide an efficient way that allows users to access school activities data quickly without jumping across multiple platforms. This can save their time in order to create to-do list and boost their productivity

💡 User-friendly design and guidance can help users to navigate Kubo independently, without relying on colleagues. This can increase users' productivity and confident.

Solutions & impacts

Based on the user pain points, the insights of the usability test and what users need

Before

This login does not seem have a brand color and brand voice.

After

I add jargon of this platform to provide users the quick info on benefits why users need to use this platform.

I create a simple design. Since our users are teachers who are still learning to use computers, we want them assuming at the first glance that "it is easy and simple to use KUBO platform".

Since some teachers don’t have email addresses, we use usernames for logging in. Only the developer and school admins have the access to add new users to KUBO software.

View the prototype

Before

The selected menu looks not clickable. That might confuse users if it's an active element or not.

Some icons don't represent the menu list: My student icon, Health, and School Administration.

After

I break down the left menus, so that users can find what they are looking for faster.

To highlight the clicked menu, I chose a purple color to create a clear visual hierarchy that helps user navigating quickly in which page they are now.

I changed the icons of some menus to be more representative, which can help users to scan the pages or contents:

My Students: with an icon of an user with graduation cap
Health: with an icon of medical service symbol (plus)
School Administration: with an icon of list

View the prototype

Teachers and headmasters struggle to overview important information quickly. If they want to do it, they have to do it manually, to open a lot of pages they need. What a time-consuming process!

Before

There is no dashboard feature

After

Create new feature: dashboard

I created a dashboard feature to help users like Isatou (the school headmaster), Ida (teacher), and Ahmed (teachers) see effortlessly the overview of the school's activities. Users can easily check attendance, academic calendar, and their to-do list. This feature lets users to know faster what's going on before making plans.

Talking to headmasters and teachers helped me understand what info they need to know daily, so I'm putting it all on the Dashboard.

View the prototype

Before

Right now, users like Ahmed are stuck filtering students by hand, either writing it down on paper or creating lists on their computer. Our software only has a basic search function, but not filtering. Users need to do a lot of efforts for a simple task: filtering students.

The hierarchy in the table is not clear: between the title and the the other texts.

Some users are not familiar with the icons or symbols of the two genders. It slows them down to scan the info.

After

Replace the gender icon into text "female" or "male" at a glance. Since the gender icon isn’t widely recognized in The Gambia. This simple change will make it faster for users to scan the information.

View the prototype

Say goodbye to manual sorting! I’ve added a Filter feature that lets users like Ahmed quickly find students based on grade, age, tribe, language, and gender. Seamless step for organizing events, lessons, and administration. These categories were carefully chosen from teacher feedback during our research.

Before

The hierarchy is not clear, so users take some times to read it.

After

Break down the profile with a clear hierarchy, to support users like Isatou, Ida, and Ahmed scan the info and find quickly what they are looking for, without feeling ovewhelmed.

Add a class status (on badge) "Grade 4" after the student's name. These two are the most important info on a student's profile. It can help users to identify a student faster.

If users click the Grade 4 badge, it can direct users to the page of Grade 4 list and find they need there faster.

View the prototype

Before

Users (represented by Ida) struggle to track students' progress, which they still do it manually. They open each student's reports and then analyze it.

I tested this to our team. They are confused about what button to click to print this report. It shows that it's not clear which part users need to click to print it. They just randomly clicked.

The black bold texts (Term 1, Term 2, Term 3) are actually buttons to download the document, not to print it. This can create more confusion for users because they think they had clicked the print button, so they wait for the document is being printed out. But actually, they just download the document and they need to click another button to print it.

After

To solve a users' problem (represented by Ida's problem), which tracking their students manually by opening each report one by one, I designed a new feature called Student Performance Overview for each lesson. Now, teachers can quickly see how their students are doing at a glance and follow up on what they need to improve or catch up on.

With a quick glance at green means "doing good", red means "needs improvement", progress bar and percentage, teachers can easily track each student’s progress effortless.

View the prototype

Change "print" button into "View" button because the function of this button is to view the report document, not to print it.

I redesigned KUBO platform with dark mode. A change that saves power, which is important in places with limited electricity like the schools in The Gambia.

By using less bright light on the screen, dark mode helps KUBO run longer without draining the battery. And as a bonus, it’s easier on the eyes for users during those long-hardworking hours.

View the prototype

What I learned

✨

Considering the technology limitation

We only have four developers as volunteers, the limited electricity with solar panels, and the unstable internet connection in The Gambia. It takes more time to get information from the school staffs and to develop new features. So, patience is key.

✨

I felt slapped right in my face many times

Before going to The Gambia, I often compared my life in Indonesia, a third-world country, to Europe. Indonesia always seemed left behind in education, science, and technology. But when I visited The Gambia, I realized how lucky I was to have had access to technology and a good education from a young age. Even though it may not have been the best, I still had more access than many.

In The Gambia, I met people around 5 to 50 years old who were incredibly happy because we set up computer classes in their villages. It was their first time ever using a computer!

✨

The hard part

But the harddest part? Seeing how little some locals had. Kids asked for food while we ate. Teachers showed us school toilets that were just a dark room with smelly holes in the ground.

Our mission expanded. From improving the digital platform to raise money to fix basic infrastructure, starting with toilets. Yup, the trip was chaotic, but it was indeed eye-opening and unforgettable. 💕

Next improvement

How to find students based on scores

We take more time to design a feature for teachers' need that help them finding or filtering students based on scores. In order to take immediate action such as providing students additional support to improve.

Developing

Now, I'm teaming up with the developers to bring this design to life. Stay tuned ✨

Breadcrumb navigation

This handy feature acts like a guide, helping users know exactly where they are and track their steps. No more confusion or second-guessing. Just a seamless journey through the software.

FAQ feature

This could be a solution for users (represented by Ahmed) who are newbie to use computers, to use KUBO software and who often ask their colleagues for assistance. By providing a simple Frequently Asked Question, these users could be more independent and not always relying on others to help them.