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Clever Hub & Blog

Design Research

UI, UX Design

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Clever believes that software has the potential to empower teachers and create new ways to learn - that’s why they want to be the portal in every household for education apps and technology, but one thing must happen first. Everyone must be able to log in—quickly and securely. So they built a single sign-on portal that now helps 60% of U.S. K–12 schools spend more time learning and less time logging in. Clever believes that technology is a powerful vehicle to make education more equitable and engaging.

ROLE & CONTRIBUTIONS

I was the UI designer and design researcher behind the development of their current website and blog. My UX and design research expertise and experience as an educator made me the ideal candidate to connect with the Clever team and their users to enhance the overall experience and ultimately help them make education equitable and engaging.

WEBSITE AND MOBILE BRANDING

Clever is an incredible product with impactful content, however the UI of the site and overall brand needed an overhaul. I worked with the Clever team and clients to understand how the UI could best serve their purposes and redesigned how users navigated through the portal by making the navigation more applicable and the login easier to navigate. Rather than a single sign-on, now the user can log in as a student, educator, parent, district or app partner. We also reorganized the website content and designed new templates that showcase content quickly. We provided the Clever team with building blocks to easily update the latest Clever news.

TESTING THE BLOG

To achieve Clever Blog’s goal of increasing its presence among educators, I conducted interviews and user testing with six current and former educators with broad experiences and diverse perspectives in education. Our goal was to understand teachers’ motivations, preferences and desires in using ed tech resources in route to designing a product that helped them be successful in their daily jobs.

I asked a variety of questions to get a clearer picture of the daily lives of educators, coaches and administrators. We made space for them to tell us what they hoped we’d keep at the top of mind as we designed the Clever Blog.

  • “The most critical thing is accessibility. If there’s a barrier to entry it would be cumbersome and daunting.”

    - Timothy, High School Educator

  • “What I always look for in a teaching blog is a teacher talking about using a tool and their reflection of its benefits. Does it save me time?”

    - Daniel, Former Jr. High Educator

  • “I hoped to spend [a maximum] of 5 to 10 minutes a day on a blog.”

    - Lucas, Former Jr. High Educator

  • “Best case scenario, a blog could help [alleviate] the pressure that teachers receive by providing tools to hit targets.”

    - Joanne, Former High School Educator & Academic Coach

The Solution

  • EFFICIENCY

    It was immediately apparent that teachers are strapped for time and their top priority was to find applicable resources quickly. We chose to utilize category tags to organize content so they could quickly identify what they were looking for.

  • EMPATHY

    Educators responded to content that validated their well-being. Every user was surprised to see an article dedicated to self-care and expressed that it felt good to be treated like a human with needs.

  • CREDIBILITY

    It was important to educators that the site was built with credibility through voice, informed content and fellow teacher voices and opinions. Educators stated that they would trust a tool coming from Clever if their district already used it or if it had been referred to them by another teacher.

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