STUDIORA
Helping parents find and book the best tutors for their children.
Goals
So it got me thinking: how can I help busy, working parents effectively manage their children's tutoring and educational needs in a way that feels efficient, supportive, and straightforward?
Goals that influenced my design process:
Simplify scheduling and communication to reduce stress.
Make it easy for parents to track progress and hold children accountable.
Create a direct, efficient communication channel between parents and tutors.
Background & Motivation
Balancing work and parenting is no small feat - especially when it comes to managing a child’s education. In the Google UX specialization, I was drawn to a project prompt about building a platform to help busy parents support their kids’ learning.
For me, this hit home. Growing up, I watched my single mom navigate the constant struggle of balancing work with arranging my extracurriculars. That experience really opened my eyes just how tough it is for working parents to handle all the coordination needed for their kids’ education.
What is Studiora?
Studiora is an app designed to simplify managing children’s tutoring sessions for busy parents. It provides a centralized platform for scheduling, communication, and progress tracking, helping parents efficiently oversee their children's educational journey.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Type of Project
Conceptual Case Study
Duration
6 Weeks
Platform
Mobile iOS App
Common Pain Points
The interviews and subsequent affinity mapping clarified several pain points for parents who have tried unsuccessful or inefficient methods to improve their children's extracurricular activities. These pain points include:
Fragmented tools for tracking and scheduling: Parents find it hard to keep up with their children's progress because they have to use many different tools and platforms, which is inefficient.
Booking difficulties: Setting up tutoring sessions takes a lot of time and effort, which is challenging for busy parents.
Price vs. quality dilemma: Parents struggle to find tutors who are both good at teaching and affordable. They often have to choose between quality and price.
To address the project's challenges and achieve the goals, I started with the most crucial step:
User Research
For the first bit of user research, I sat down with three local participants who matched the target user profile. My goal was to understand their daily struggles, needs, and motivations regarding their kids' education and tutoring. I wanted to capture the bigger picture and identify real pain points. Each participant had a unique family setup, time constraints, and views on tutoring.
One of the conclusions was that it’s not that parents don’t want to bother with their children’s tutoring process and remind them about extracurriculars. They just need a more streamlined way of doing it so the process isn't fragmented across several platforms.
Challenges as a Designer
As this was one of my first UX projects, I faced quite a few challenges with this project:
Limited research: I only had time to interview just a few users. This small sample made it hard to be sure about my design choices.
Assumptions: Because I couldn't talk to as many real users, I had to use online research and make some educated guesses and design thinking backed decisions about what the user might need.
Balancing features: I wanted to include many helpful features without making the app too complicated or visually bloated for users.
Time management: Balancing time between perfecting details and maintaining a holistic view was a pretty big challenge.
Despite these difficulties, I learned how important user research and feedback are in creating good designs. This project showed me that talking to real users and testing designs thoroughly are essential in making an app that truly helps people.
How-Might-We’s
My findings uncovered significant challenges parents face in managing their children's tutoring experiences. From inefficient progress tracking to cumbersome scheduling and fragmented communication, these tasks were time-consuming creating barriers for parents. These insights led me to ask critical questions:
How might we combine the process of tracking tutoring sessions, progress, and homework in a single platform?
How might we make the search and booking of tutors faster and more intuitive for parents?
How might we enable real-time communication between parents and tutors for a smooth experience?
User Persona
To make sure the app really meets parents’ needs, I put together a User Persona based on what we learned in the interviews so far.
This persona helped me keep the design focused on the real challenges parents face.
So what should we design and why should the user care?
I selected the most important ideas to implement in the first round of design, providing their value, rationale, and user feedback for each.
Efficient Booking and Matching of Tutors (with filters for price, experience, or rating)
Rationale: Core functionality for effectively finding and booking tutors.
Value: Streamlines the process, making it more convenient for parents.
User Feedback: 100% of users indicated that they would find this feature very useful.
Centralized Dashboard
Rationale: Provides a central hub for progress tracking and session management.
Value: Organized overview of their child’s tutoring, enhancing the app’s utility.
User Feedback: 86% of users indicated that they would find this feature very useful
Recurring Weekly Booking
Rationale: Simplifies scheduling for regular tutoring sessions.
Value: Reduces the need for repetitive re-booking, enhancing convenience.
User Feedback: 86% of users indicated that they would find this feature very useful.
Direct Communication
Rationale: Enables seamless coordination between parents and tutors.
Value: Facilitates efficient and real-time communication.
User Feedback: 92% of users indicated that they would find this feature very useful.
Tutor Performance Reviews
Rationale: Simplifies scheduling for regular tutoring sessions.
Value: Reduces the need for repetitive re-booking, enhancing convenience.
User Feedback: 86% of users indicated that they would find this feature very useful.
Personalized Recommendations for Tutors
Rationale: Provides personalized tutor suggestions.
Value: Helps parents find suitable tutors based on previous booking activity
User Feedback: 72% of users indicated that they would find this feature useful.
Parent-Teacher Video Calls
Rationale: High development effort with moderate user value.
Value: Sufficient communication through direct messaging.
User Feedback: 49% of users indicated that they would find direct messaging sufficient.
Customizable User Profiles
Rationale: Adds personalization to user accounts.
Value: Allows customization of user profiles for a more personalized experience.
User Feedback: 29% of users indicated that they would find it less important.
Competitor Analysis
Some of the feature ideas that emerged from the user survey were benchmarked against those offered by similar platforms. I conducted secondary research on key competitors in the tutoring space, including Wyzant, TutorMe, Varsity Tutors, and Preply.
Ideation
To determine which features would be most valuable, I conducted primary research through a quick survey with potential users (parents) to evaluate their needs. Fourteen participants, selected for their similarities to our user persona, provided insights that guided which features to select”
Prioritization Matrix
Using the primary and secondary research, I put together a prioritization matrix to decide which features to include, making the design process clearer and keeping me on track.
Studiora is:
An efficient platform for finding and booking qualified tutors.
Your centralized hub for tracking tutoring sessions, progress, and homework.
A real-time communication channel between parents and tutors.
Studiora is NOT:
A complex, feature-heavy general education platform
Designed for professional educators or large institutions—it specifically targets busy parents looking for tutors.
A social network for parents or students
Main User Flow
With these principles in mind, I crafted the main user flow to illustrate the tutor booking process which aims to be as simple and efficient as possible.
Design
The design philosophy for this product centers on creating an intuitive, accessible experience that caters to the unique needs of time-pressed parents. Here's what Studiora offers:
App Sitemap
Alongside the flows, I developed an app map to define Studiora's information architecture and to shape its structure and layout.
Paper Wireframes
One of the initial steps in my visual design process was hand sketching. I began by creating hand-drawn wireframes to lay out the basic page structure. I explored various options for elements of the user flow, including the homepage, tutor selection page, tutor profiles, booking pages, and user profiles. The name of the app was different back then as well :)
To make sure the product met the needs of the intended users, I designed a prototype in Figma and tested it with 5 participants (professionals and retired parents). The study focused on:
1. Task completion success (finding and booking a tutor).
2. Time required to complete the booking flow.
3. Identifying unclear features or wording.
4. Gathering feedback to improve the user flow.
Before
After
Digital Wireframes
I moved on to creating digital wireframes to map out the primary user flow. Key question was how the flow for a simple booking should be designed. Here’s one of the initial iterations of that flow:
Key findings:
3/5 Users
successfully completed the booking task.
4/5 Users
found the "featured tutors" section unclear. It was replaced with a "subjects” section.
3/5 Users
were confused by the 're-book last session' feature, which was removed.
5/5 Users
wanted a recurring booking feature, which was introduced.
Users took longer than expected to book a tutor due to a suboptimal 5-screen flow. Streamlining the process by transitioning directly to the booking screen after selecting "find a tutor" made it more intuitive and efficient.
3-Button Dashboard: Redesigned dashboard showcasing glanceable info for upcoming sessions, homework, and progress tracking.
Enhanced visual design by applying contrast, alignment, and consistency principles to create a clean, user-friendly interface.
Homepage Layout: Updated based on usability study findings, ensuring a focus on high-priority elements like recommended tutors, child settings, and previous bookings
Simplified Navigation: Removed redundant "Messages" button, added a dedicated notification icon
Homepage Iterations
The design underwent numerous iterations. Here, I highlight the most impactful ones.
Like any design process, there were ups and downs, including challenges with scheduling and finding the right participants.
I relied on the usability testing and design thinking principles to shape and refine the final product
Usability Test 2 (4 Participants)
Usability Test 3 (3 Participants)
Revised Iterations
Initial Iterations
Final Version
Dashboard
3/4 Users
found the dashboard underwhelming, lacking detailed features, and visually cluttered.
2/4 Users
struggled to immediately locate the progress tracker and homework.
Layout and Content
3/4 Users
preferred the recommended tutors section on the homepage.
4/4 Users
preferred the second homepage layout.
Suggestions for Improvement
3/4 Users
suggested adding previous bookings to the homepage.
Dashboard
3/3 Users
appreciated the clean layout, but found the lack of visual separation problematic.
2/3 Users
felt the "Messages" button on the dashboard was redundant due to the bottom nav icon.
Layout and Content
3/3 Users
preferred the second homepage layout.
3/3 Users
expressed a desire for notifications button
Suggestions for Improvement
2/3 Users
expressed strong interest in a Tips or Tutorials section for guidance.
1/3 Users
suggested adding an onboarding tutorial.
Progress Tracker Redesign
During the second and third usability tests, I asked users for feedback on the dashboard features and also on a confirmation screen.
Some updates were made to the upcoming sessions and homework tabs, the progress tracker underwent the most significant changes and design improvements.
Based on their feedback, I explored several new features and expanded on a few other ones.
Pie-Chart View: The updated chart made it easier to see which subjects were being covered most often.
Visuals and Sorting: The refreshed visuals made the data more engaging and easier to understand, and the new sorting feature let users switch between weekly, monthly, or yearly views of progress.
Tutor Feedback: Adding tutor evaluations and comments gave parents much-needed context and insights about their child’s learning.
Overview: All users loved the new summary view, saying it gave them a quick and clear snapshot of their child’s progress.
Session details are now presented in an expandable "see more" format, reducing visual clutter
First Iteration
Second Iteration
Final Design
Connected the tutor and student avatars with a line and the word "with," using proximity and to create a clearer visual relationship
Also using Gestalt principles like proximity and common region the card was designed to enhance clarity and ensure consistency with the card-based layout found throughout the app.
Relevant session information placed above the tutor and child avatars for improved visibility
Used hierarchy in presenting the most important information on the confirmation card
Confirmation Screen Iterations
I redesigned the confirmation step screen by organizing tutor and child profile pictures alongside key session details into an expandable card layout, exploring whether grouping this information in this way would enhance clarity and user experience.
Icons
home
profile
chat
Visual Branding
Color Schemes
Neutral
Secondary
Primary
Typography
Text Typeface:
Weight:
Size:
Satoshi
Bold
Medium
Regular
Heading H4
24px / 32px
Heading H5
20px / 28px
Body Large
16px / 24px
Body Medium
14px / 20px
Body Small
12px / 16px
OVERLINE (CAPS)
14px / 20px
Button
16px / 24px
Logo
Logo Typeface:
Light & Dark Versions:
CORMORANT GARAMOND
STUDIORA
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STUDIORA
STUDIORA
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STUDIORA
Components
STUDIORA
9:41
home
chat
profile
Top & Bottom Navigation
Notifications
AB
Javier Torres (Spanish) has scheduled a session for Jasmine on
April 16th 16:00 - 17:00
Accept
Decline
55m
Priscilla Davids has confirmed the session date April 15th 17:00 - 18:00
2m
Tab Bars
Session
Bio
Reviews
Child #1
Child #2
Child #3
Cards
Physics session
April 15th
17:00 - 18:00
Olivia w/ Prof. Priscilla Davids
see details
Priscilla Davids
4.8
Physics
$30/hr
6th grade
Olivia
Needs help with: Physics, Spanish
Message Bubbles
16:05
Thanks a bunch! 🙌 I’ll definitely give those articles a read. Your proactive approach is much appreciated. Looking forward to our discussions!
16:04
Hi Gabriella, I've scheduled a video call for your child's next tutoring session. Please share this link with your child to join the session: [Video Call Link]. Thank you!
Buttons
Button
Button
Experience the Prototype
Learnings
Working on Studiora has been a transformative experience. Transitioning from the world of architecture and spending many months learning and creating in the field of UX, I’m proud to have built something I’m excited to share. It was my first UX design project, and while it came with many challenges along the way, I also gained invaluable insights into the iterative nature of design.
I’d say one of the most important lessons I learned was the impact of user feedback. Many preconceived notions I had were quickly debunked during interviews and usability testing, teaching me that assumptions rarely lead to good design
I also learned that excessive attention to detail, while valuable, sometimes slowed my progress and led me down paths that didn’t seem to align with the project’s broader goals.
Looking back, I’d prioritize more collaboration. Working solo relied heavily on my own design thinking and user interviews, but larger input from peers or mentors could have brought valuable perspectives. It’s a focus for the future for sure.
What’s Next for Studiora?
If Studiora were to have a "sequel," it would focus on expanding the experience for tutors. This could include building a side of the platform just for tutors to help them keep track and manage the the bookings coming in, maybe introduce a rewards system for the pupils, and explore the different set of tools for communication with parents. Exploring this side would make Studiora a well-rounded solution that works for both parents and educators.
As this is a conceptual case study and the product hasn’t been developed, I’d love to explore some more simulations of real-world scenarios to better understand how Studiora could function and provide value. Collecting data from a larger group of users could reveal patterns or challenges we haven’t spotted yet, opening up chances to fine-tune and enhance the product.
Also I’d love to see Studiora evolve into a web experience. A responsive web platform would provide added convenience and accessibility, which would allow users to engage with the platform from any device. (Spoiler alert: My next case study dives into exactly that—I’ve already developed a web platform solution for Studiora!)
Thank you for reading!
