The Fragmented UX of School Communications
For those with kids in Nursery or School the admin of keeping up to date with School apps and communications is probably all too familiar. Perhaps you need to find out when sports day is and are left hunting through the app’s home feed to find out, or mid-way through your shift at work you get a vague notification from the app that fills you with dread... As much as these apps are designed to make parents lives easier, it seems they are often having the exact opposite effect. The reality is often an overwhelming mental load as users deal with fragmented systems spanning multiple apps, experience high anxiety from poorly designed notifications, and become frustrated with unintuitive interfaces that bury critical information. Evidently there is a real gap between schools simply buying software to help parents versus implementing a truly user-centred system.
We have a fair few children between us here at System Concepts and therefore several School apps to juggle. We decided to interview the UX team to uncover where these apps are falling short of the ideal user experience.
The Notification Dread
When it comes to kids, worrying is simply part of the package. So when the people you’ve left them with send you a message, your mind immediately starts jumping to conclusions. This is particularly true when the notification from the school’s app gives no context and leaves you guessing. Katherine explains:
“One of the things I don't like is that it will just say you have a new message and it doesn't tell you anything about the message! There are basically three main reasons you get a message:
One is it's just an e-mail, in which case I don't really want to have a message that says you have a new message because I'm going to get the e-mail anyway.
The second one is that your child's done something wrong, so they've got a behaviour point and they might have to have a detention or something. But also it means that whenever it says you have a new message, you're like, ‘Oh God, what have they done?!’, but it could just be an e-mail.
Then the third time you get a new message, it's because there's another sporting event. And that also makes my heart sink because my school is so bad at the logistics, that it says the event will be in two days’ time!” Katherine
Consideration:
If notifications gave more information about what they were pinging you for (e.g., Urgent, Routine, Behaviour, Administrative) then users could mentally triage them and feel less anxious before opening the app.
App Fragmentation & System Inconsistency
A few of our colleagues here at System Concepts are balancing numerous apps and have to get to grips with inconsistencies in how each staff member uses the apps. Instead of acting as a "one-stop-shop," schools are forcing parents to navigate a highly fragmented ecosystem of apps.
Catherine described using a chaotic web of platforms for her two children: MCAS, BromCom, Seneca, Sparx, Arbor, ParentPay, StudyBugs, plus Facebook and WhatsApp. This means she has to complete a daily routine of checking each platform to ensure no key information is missed - something she described as "a full-time job". Frustratingly some of the apps do have the functionality to do the tasks other apps are doing, yet these older systems remain in use out of ease, resulting in this fragmentation of content across many apps.
“I think schools buy into these solutions because they claim that they're going to fix all of their communication issues and make their lives easier. But they're not IT specialists, so they just start using them, and they're not set up correctly, and the systems around them are not correct. So then it kind of creates more work.” Catherine
A few people in the team also discussed how despite the school’s adoption of these comprehensive apps/systems, the UX is still broken by inconsistent use by the staff. For example, the app will show when children have been rewarded with positive behaviour points by teachers, however each teacher will use these points very differently. Some may give several points to everyone for a good lesson, whereas another may only give one point to the student who delivered the best homework. Therefore, the inconsistency in how everyone is using the app means the app never gives a full picture and must always be taken with a pinch of salt. This begs the question as to whether teachers receive any guidance on how to use each app in the first place.
Consideration:
Evidently the many platforms and inconsistent use of them isn’t doing anything to help parents stay on top of things. In order to reduce the mental load and constant chasing of updates across platforms, schools should consider how to combine all systems within one space and invest the time to integrate them properly. There is also an opportunity for schools to implement training for teachers where it might be missing. Combined, these improvements would be hugely beneficial and timesaving for parents.
Information lost amongst endless updates
Another common issue we found, particularly within the Famly app, was information being buried deep within long home feeds. Sarah explained how the app's "massive, massive" feed contains 80% of information that is irrelevant to her, such as photos of the day’s activities, meaning that important updates can get lost and cause issues as she explains here:
“So my children didn't have a packed lunch because I didn't see that update [in the feed]. Yeah, that was bad actually, because I then had to go back and I was working, so I really could have done without that. So really important stuff like the packed lunches, that needs to be in the messaging feature of the app, not on the feed.” Sarah
Similarly, Frankie shared frustrations that she disliked the app defaulting to showing the home feed when logging in as again this was mostly irrelevant information. She instead said she would prefer the app to default to her own child's timeline of updates, which currently requires an extra click.
Consideration:
It is evident that School apps need to have a way of prioritising what each parent finds most important. Essential administrative tasks (like bringing a packed lunch) shouldn't compete with photos of everyday classroom activities, meaning being able to separate out or filter different categories of updates is key.
Unintuitive navigation for key tasks
Something that was consistent across all the School apps evaluated was some of the key tasks being particularly hard to find/do. Parents are frequently struggling to complete basic tasks because the app's Information Architecture (IA) is confusing or overly complex. For example, when trying to make a donation to the school for art supplies, Catherine expected to find this under the usual tab for making payments ‘Outstanding payments’. However, there was nowhere to make a donation, and so after some exploration she found a ‘shop’ tab where this could be done. Similarly Sarah frustratingly has to set the pick-up time for her child every day, as required by the nursery, which is multiple clicks away, buried within the calendar feature and then right at the bottom of the daily timeline of activities/updates.
Consideration:
Particularly for tasks that occur every day, designs need to be streamlined and clear to make the process as efficient and simple as possible. This can be achieved by minimising the number of clicks, locating calls to action in intuitive places, plus offering ways to reduce the amount of times the task needs to be repeated, such as not entering a pick-up time every day but instead allowing it to be set for the week.
Missed opportunities for communication
Despite these apps being core communication tools, they can often make parents feel disconnected. Frankie noted that as a new parent at the nursery, she doesn't yet know any other parents or the names of the nursery staff off by heart. She suggested that if the app included a basic staff photo directory, she could learn their names better, plus if the app had an introductory "social area" forum for parents, then perhaps she could form connections with fellow parents.
“I guess with my child having just started, and I realise there's a privacy thing here, but we don't really know who all the other children and their parents are. So, some way to have the ability to message other parents of children or have a group, like some kind of social area [would be beneficial].” Frankie
Others also mentioned wanting to message specific teachers directly to perhaps enquire about some homework or the grades given to their children.
Consideration:
Having further communication features directly within the app for not only the staff, but the fellow parents too, would be a useful tool to help with the forming of a community, as well as improving the relationships between parents and teachers.
Conclusion
Our interviews uncovered that while School apps are offered with the best intentions of creating an easier way for schools and parents to communicate, the reality is often very different. The issues mentioned in this article are all things that are detrimental to the user experience and are common pitfalls that can occur across industries. We are always striving to help our clients with improving their platforms whether that’s their notifications, the hierarchy of information provided or the best way to navigate to key tasks.
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