User centered

Research

One of the goals of our products is to save teachers time - so we try to use this limited resource wisely. The following are types of user research I have been involved in throughout the life-cycle of Watson Classroom.

• User Interviews - We conduct user interviews with our clients/districts and do our best to test user experiences within the Austin studio as much as possible. Recently, our designs have incorporated a lot of specific data that needs to be tested by active teachers, so it's been great to get feedback and get to know teachers in the districts we are serving. I create Invision prototypes or PDFs of wireframes to use in these interviews.
   

• Shadowing Teachers - I've shadowed Kindergarten and 6th grade teachers to discover pain-points they wouldn't have thought to express in a workshop or user interview.
   

• External Workshops - We actively engage in design thinking activities with our districts to help us understand more about different roles and responsibilities of educators. I've organized and facilitated "Empathy Mapping", "As-Is Scenarios", "Big Ideas", "Storyboarding", and "To-Be Scenarios" and "To-Be Skits" at one point or another with my team, at client engagements, or within IBM Design.
   

• Client Playbacks - Once a month, I lead the design portion of our playbacks to clients in order to get Superintendent/Principal feedback before we push to code.