In 2021, Dreambox Learning did not have have a student facing experience to motivate kids to make progress. The Lesson Chooser experience frustrated kids by showing limited choices and locked lessons that couldn't be accessed until certain milestones, invisible to the student, were met. Meanwhile, the platform was missing an opportunity to celebrate learning milestones in a way that was meaningful to the student. In terms of reporting, only teachers and administrators were able to access number of lessons completed in a week, progress toward 5 lessons per week, and for older students; lessons completed in a session, time in session, and coins earned.
The goal of Student Facing Reporting was to make these milestones and celebrations visible to students as well and to motivate them to keep returning to Dreambox and mastering concepts.
Stats
Early Exploration
For Student Statistics, we wanted to focus on the metrics for lessons completed since the beginning of the school year, time spent in Dreambox lessons since the beginning of the school year, and the highest number of lessons completed in a week. We were looking for an airy, dashboard design that would highlight the celebration aspect of the student's accomplishments.
Two concepts were being considered early in the exploration. Both concepts would feature an 'evolution/celebration event' when a student reached a milestone in their learning, gifting the student a collectable piece of art. These events would be a surprise celebration for our students when they entered the dashboard, a surprise and delight that would bring them back as they completed more milestones.
The first concept featured animated characters that could evolve as the student evolves. For this concept, Design felt strongly that the students would connect more emotionally to their success if the metrics were personified.
The second concept was a conservative iconography approach that more literally represented the metrics we were trying to convey. Additionally, it offered a lower capital scope for the SFR initiative. By limiting our scope for animation, we could focus our resources on other initiatives in progress within the platform.
Can't decide? A-B test it.
Testing at Dreambox Learning can be challenging. Because we're working with minors, there's strict guidelines in place to ensure their privacy. That being said, we were able to reach a great group of kids from school districts across the country who were delighted to give us their opinions. From full class interviews to one-on-ones, my UX partner and I were able to get a comprehensive sample group for our feedback which we recorded and consolidated for our stakeholders. Unsurprisingly to us (the designers), our transforming mons won by a landslide. Many stakeholder meetings were staked, presentations presented, and opinions opined, and these little guys came into being.
Collect them all! When a student naviates to the page after a hard lesson's work, they receive their prize. Good job, kid :)
Achievements
Early Exploration
The Achievements page was conceived to help Dreamboxers track where they've been. While the lesson chooser limited the number of lessons a student could see and interact with, the Achievements page would show students what lessons they'd completed, were still working on, or were scheduled to pop into their chooser next.
We opted for a straightforward graph approach capable of displaying all possible math concepts (domains) that a student could master on our platform. Within each of these domains a student could expand the graph and access the lessons within each lesson group to track their progress.
In parody with Stats, the icons for complete, in progress, and future would undergo evolution events when a student navigated to the Achievements dashboard. Straightforward, right? But on iconography we were torn. These are just a fraction of the icons that were under consideration by Curriculum, PM, Design, and student vote. It had to be perfect, and while stars got our point across, for some the simplicity just wasn't cutting it.
Can't decide? You guessed it. A-B test!
This time, the love was across the board internally and with our students. We decided after round one release, we were going to give our kids what they wanted; the ability to choose their own icons. Someday, Dreamboxers will be able to do just that, but for now, kids have an engaging experience to return to between lessons with fun celebrations and motivating stats that will keep them coming back.