HOMEROOM
OVERVIEW
Capstone Design Project, 2020
8 Weeks
For my senior design project in the fall of 2020, I wanted to create a digital product that helped people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
What interested me in UX Design and Research initially was the overlap between psychology and technology, so I thought this would be an important problem to tackle. ADHD is a disorder that affects millions of people all over the world. For the people who have this disorder, a digital interface can become overwhelming and small details, such due dates, get lost in the millions of thoughts going through their heads. A solution that would help students with ADHD, will also work better for all students.
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Homeroom serves as an assignment and task manager, as well as a communication platform for students. It acts as a digital hub where the user can better organize, keep track, and stop missing assignments. Students of registered classes can also chat with their peers for help. This product is designed for iPads, as schools, including lower income ones in Minnesota, give their students iPads to use.
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The goal of this platform is to helps students manage due dates and stay connected to their peers outside of the classroom. And, the goal of this project was to use extensive user research to help create a friendly and delightful digital experience.
UNDERSTANDING ADHD
Before starting user research and the design process, I thought it was important to do research about ADHD itself. If I as a designer understand this condition, I can better design a solution that helps people who have the disorder.​
WHAT IS ADHD?
ADHD is a chronic condition that can includes difficulties maintaining attention, hyperactivity, difficulties regulating emotions, and impulsivity.
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It is usually noticed in childhood and affects someone for their whole life. The condition often contributes to low self-esteem, troubled relationships, and difficulties at school and work.
THE THREE TYPES:
THE SCOPE
Before starting this project, I had to ask, what are some of the defining facts? So, I did some quick preliminary
research for this project:
HOW MIGHT WE...
Make high school feel less overwhelming for students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)?
SURVEY
To kick off the research portion of the project, I made a Google Form and sent it out onto the web through ADHD Reddit forums, Tumblr groups, and Facebook groups.
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I asked that in order to take the survey, respondents had to have been diagnosed with ADHD or be at least 70% sure they had it. I didn't want to limit respondents to only having received an official diagnosis because access to ADHD testing depends on location, income, and peoples families.
With the help of the internet, I was able to collect 199 responses to my survey. The survey consisted of multiple choice and short answer questions.
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I was able to collect responses from people in other countries. 32% of respondents were from countries other than the U.S. It was super interesting to hear how students with ADHD in countries like Denmark, Sweden, India, and etc. navigate the education system.
SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS
Below are some of the key statistics from the survey. In all, most people with ADHD felt overwhelmed in highschool and thought their disorder affected their grades. But, on the bright side, many process information better visually. This showed me that I needed to figure out how to organize assignments and due dates in a visual clean matter so that information doesn't get lost.
MARKET RESEARCH
It was important to research Homeroom's competitors and see where they fall short with ADHD students. My survey provided insight on commonly used software in high schools today. I did market research and figured out how these current solutions could be doing better.
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Homerooms main competitors would be Canvas, PowerSchool, and Schoology
INTERVIEWS
I was able to interview two people over Zoom and one person on a phone call. Two teenagers with ADHD from Minnesota, and a special education and technology teacher from New Jersey.
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This helped provide different perspectives about ADHD and school. (Names changed for privacy).
Heather
Most children learn better visually or seeing examples in general. As most people skim over reading. It's not just ADHD, the techniques used for teaching ADHD people would be better for all people. In my opinion, Technology helps support this.
Mason
I spent hours on things that should have not taken so long. would cry over bad grades.... I remember doing homework right before class ever since 9th grade. Everything just took me longer because I kept losing focus in favor of other things.
Ava
I always ask a lot of clarification questions in class and need things repeated. This frustrates people.
I'm often alone because kids don't want to be paired up with me for projects, since they think I can be slow. I feel so alone.
PERSONAS
To get into the mind potential users, I created personas that would represent the different user groups of this product. Amelia and Dereck both have ADHD, but they have different struggles with it and therefore would use the product differently, but equally beneficial.
EMPATHY MAP
With the help of my interviews and survey respondents I found the barriers and anxieties that teenagers with ADHD may have in the classroom.
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What do those with ADHD .... Say, Think, Do, and Feel​ while in school?
USER JOURNEY
Below is the emotions that someone with ADHD goes through when they realized they forgot about an assignment. This journey map illustrates which areas if the current process in the most painful for users and how frustrating ADHD can be.
USER PATHWAY + FEATURES
After I created my persona, I did some user pathway exploration. In this step I used a matrix to help me think of the different stages people with ADHD may go through in a semester. It's important to think what the user needs are vs what the product is doing at the same time.
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Before I get too ahead of myself in the design process, I like to take a step back and think about what features are critical for solving the users pain points.
IDEATION
I started a mind map to process all of my ideas. It was important to think of how different solutions could aid in the problem of teenagers with ADHD feeling overwhelmed.
SITEMAP
After I sorted through which features would be helpful, I started mapping out what the different pages could be. In this process I was thinking of things like "how many pages do I need", "what's the hierarchy", etc. This process helped me simplify ideas and organize my thoughts.
INITIAL EXPLORATION
Before moving in to Adobe XD for wireframes, I did some quick ideation sketches on how main pages of the app would be structured.
WIREFRAMES
Using Adobe XD, I mocked up a wireframes of what the homepage/dashboard could look like. Below is a highlight of my first explorations.
When making initial wireframes or flows, I like to explore as many different layouts as possible. It's important to me, to not just get stuck on one layout, but to explore how content can be organized in different ways. While making these wireframes, I had to think a lot about the information architecture. Students with ADHD have a hard time noticing details, and have time blindness. For example, time blindness is the reason why having a visual calendar on the dashboard is so important.
Home (Dashboard) Explorations
Side Navigation
In this variation I gravitated towards this side navigation I created, I decided to use it in my final design.
STYLE GUIDE
Below is the Style Guide I documented while creating Homeroom.
FINAL DASHBOARD UI
Before getting into the final prototype, I wanted to showcase the final dashboard UI since it was the trickiest and most important part of the Project. Students with ADHD have to be able to see assignments and tasks in one chronological list, so that they know what to prioritize so that they don't miss assignments.
UI BREAKDOWN
Below is a breakdown of one of the main cards on the dashboard, and the messaging function. These two features are important for the success of ADHD students.
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For the quiz and exam lists, students can see a chronological order of tasks, and how historically difficult those tasks were in the past. This way they can plan out goals for how much they need to study.
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The messaging feature is also important because students need to be able to stay connected to their peers so that they can ask questions outside of school.
