PLUS is a startup providing novel human-AI tutoring opportunities to under-served communities.

Role:
Product Designer + UX Researcher

Tools:
Figma, User Interviews

Collaborators:
Design Lead: Bill Guo
Product Head: Shiv Gupta
Devs, Tutor Supervisors

Timeline:
Feb - Jul 2024 (6 months)

1. Project Overview

What is PLUS?

PLUS (Personalized Learning Squared) is a CMU-based startup intent on improving math learning for 10k+ middle schoolers by providing novel human-AI tutoring opportunities to under-served communities.

Currently, PLUS has helped 3k+ students through 500+ tutors, and has conducted 10k+ total hours of tutoring.

With this many tutors and students, a tutoring session schedule is essential to connecting tutor to student efficiently. However, PLUS' current solution is a universal Google spreadsheet overloaded with info.

My Role

Based on user interviews and insights from tutors, lead tutors, and tutor supervisors, I transitioned the external tutor scheduling Google spreadsheet to a native-app personalized scheduling table.

2. Final Product at a Glance


From Static to Dynamic

The previous Google spreadsheet was a static solution to the dynamic problem of scheduling. It provided 1 universal, outdated, and passive view to 3 user groups with differing needs.

The native scheduling table I designed still carries the necessary static session info, but contains 3 distinct user views, dyanmic alerts, and action-oriented buttons.


Core Features


1. Dynamic, Personalized Interface

2. In-app Attendance Tracking

3. In-app Real Time Cancellation Alerts

4. Signed-up vs All Sessions Toggle

5. Export CSV and Cancel Session Actions

3. User Research: Exploring the Problem Space



General Process

While we had a clear understanding of what tutor supervisors needed from a scheduling table from past user research, there was uncertainty in what tutors/lead tutors needed out of the table.

Thus, I conducted user research through 20-min interviews to identify tutor and lead tutor scheduling JTBD's. Specifically, I sought to evaluate the scheduling Google spreadsheet's performance and understand how tutors/lead tutors use the spreadsheet.




User Interview: Directed Storytelling

The first part of the user interviews involved using directed storytelling — a "show not tell" approach — to uncover the main pain-points of the spreadsheet.

This way, I'm able to determine accurate user pain-points, while placing less strain on the participant.



User Interview: Interactive Activity

The interview's interactive activity allowed participants to rename/reorder and add/delete columns on the scheduling spreadsheet. I asked participants to talk through the changes they're making and why they made certain changes.

Through this activity, participants are able to implicitly express their pain-points with the spreadsheet that they might've not been able to detail through directed storytelling.

Once finished with interviews, I compiled all the data into digestible insights shown below. Based on the insights, I created distinct HMW questions that outlined this product's problem space.

User Insights

4. Defining the Problem Space

How might we might provide ways for lead tutors to take attendance conveniently?


Lead tutors currently have to access a separate attendance tracker to take attendance. It can be tedious to go back and forth between multiple tabs.




How might we provide tutors with an intuitive and efficient way of locating sessions they signed-up for?


Tutors currently have to manually locate which tutoring sessions they signed up for by scrolling or typing "cmd + f". This is inefficient and time-wasting.




How might we communicate more effectively with tutors regarding session cancellations or other updates?


Even though many tutors regularly view the spreadsheet, cancellation notifications aren't propagated onto the spreadsheet. Cancellations are detailed via Slack/Gmail, but tutors may not see these external messages in time.

Due to this misalignment, miscommunication can easily occur.




How might we balance context and digestibility when presenting session info to tutors?


Tutors can be overwhelmed by all the info present on the spreadsheet. However, they may use certain info to corroborate they are joining the correct session.

5. Design Solution

6. Process & Reasoning

Attendance & Beyond: Action-based Buttons

To consolidate taking attendance and viewing the schedule, I added an "Actions" column to the new schedule table.

When the "View Tutors"/"Take Attendance" button is clicked, a pop-up window appears where lead tutors can check off tutors for that specific session and leave any notes.

The other action buttons create clear access points for the specific session's Zoom link and student progress tracker.




Personalizing the Schedule: 3 Separate Interfaces

Tutors, lead tutors, and admin all have different needs and restrictions. Since PLUS records the user type of each PLUS account, each user can automatically view the interface for their specific user type.

Differences between the interfaces include:

1. Attendance edit access for lead tutors/admin vs disabled access for regular tutors.

2. "Export CSV" and "Cancel Session" actions for admin vs "Sign Up/Edit" sessions actions for tutors.




Personalizing the Schedule: "View My Sessions" Toggle

To make it easier for tutors to find their sessions, I introduced a toggle that filters between the tutors' signed-up sessions vs all sessions.

This way, tutors don't have to manually find their names in all the sessions, and they still have the option to view all sessions.




Clear Communication: Cancellation Alerts

I added in-app schedule alerts for direct communication about cancellations from admin to tutors.

Admin can create these alerts from their interface, and once confirmed, the alerts propagate as dismissible banners to the tutors signed-up for the canceled sessions. The column rows corresponding to canceled sessions will now be in "disabled" mode.




Presenting Session Info: Removing Irrelevant Columns

When deciding which table columns were the most important, I asked myself: will this piece of information differentiate a session from other sessions?

This led me to this format:

Included Cols: Day, School, Shift, Teacher Name, Actions (Zoom link, Tutors, Lead Tutors)

Excluded Cols: Period, Breakout Rooms, Tutors Needed




Presenting Session Info: Pagination

Since the schedule isn't separated by school anymore, I have to ensure there isn't an overwhelming number of rows in the table.

So, I introduced pagination to only display 10 entries per page, along with a time range filter so tutors/admin can select a specific time range of entries they want to view.

7. Reflection

Before this project, I'd never worked with multiple distinct user groups. I had to keep in mind sometimes conflicting JTBDs, while making sure the design was still consistent across each group.

I also learned that design lives within the context of development. Shiv (head of product) noted the difficulties of coding complex pagination and different interfaces for one product. I hadn't considered that implementation effort may vary between design and development. Moving forward I'll make sure my designs take into account developer time and feasibility.

Impact

In August 2024, I shipped my design off to the PLUS developers. Tutors and tutor supervisors are incredibly excited for the new schedule to be fully published!