Mathletics (Student Assign) Legacy Transformation
Transforming a legacy system into an easy to use teacher module that assigns tasks to students
- UI
- UX
- EdTech
The assign module in Mathletics was a 10 year old system built in flash that urgently needed to be updated.
The module was simple - with one click an activity would be instantly assigned to a student. However we knew some teachers like to pre-plan their lessons, so a overhaul of the experience needed to be considered.
The problem
After a technology audit and hearing feedback from teachers, the following list of the most urgent issues / needs was collated:
- The system was created in flash and there was a looming deadline of browsers cutting off support.
- The system was not responsive, making it difficult for teachers to view on anything other than a desktop.
- Teachers had no ability to pre-plan lessons - activities were assigned to students instantly on click.
- Teachers could not select multiple activities and assign to student(s).
- Teachers could not set an activity for the future, or set a due date.
- Thers was no visibility for teachers between assigned activities vs voluntary activities.
- Teachers could not see how many times a student completed an activity, which made it difficult for them to determine if a student was struggling.
The process
For this stage of the project I created various userflows mapping out potential solutions.
Issues
When you are updating old systems it's sometimes hard to get the balance right keeping existing users happy while adding functionality that can make it more complex.
There were many existing users that used the product as a supplementary tool that were resistant to change. On the other hand there were also the users that wanted more functionality and used the product in-class as a core tool.
The compromise? We tried not to change main components too much compared to the original - for example, keeping the table of students/activities very similar so existing users wouldn't feel completely out of their element. While there was always going to be an adjustment period for users, we tried to make the assign process as simple as possible.
The result
We received positive feedback from teachers who could now manage their time more efficiently by pre-planning lessons. They were also able to help more students by quickly being able to see at a glance who were struggling.
The original system
The updated interface
Teachers could now:
- Select rows of activities or students and assign in bulk.
- Set a start and due date for activities.
- See what activities students are doing voluntary.
- See when students are struggling and how many attempts per activity.
- See the status of an activity - Assigned/In progress/Overdue
