BETHANIE COLWELL
STUDENT CENTERED DESIGN
Mindful Morning
An in-school social emotional learning solution to build the secondary classroom community
Role
User Research
UX/UI Design
Usability Testing
Methods & Tools
Secondary Research
Competitive Analysis
Adobe Suite
Invision
Date
February-April 2020
Practices
User Interviews
Wireframing
Prototyping
Remote Usability Testing
CONTEXT
Mindful Morning is a concept project that is currently being explored for development in this critical moment in education. This unique project is designed to be projected in a classroom, most interactively on an Promethean or Smartboard with touchscreen technology.
Mindful Morning exists to support the overwhelming mental health needs of our nation’s young people and those that teach them by making Social Emotional Learning (SEL) instruction easy.
What is SEL? Soft skills critical for success such as growth mindset, resilience and emotional intelligence.
PROBLEM
Public schools are a "tinderbox of stressful conditions"
All of the unrest and uncertainty in our world today meets in public schools, causing an unfit environment for students and those that teach them, both physically and psychologically. In fact, 61% of teachers in the U.S. feel stressed “often” or “always” at work, on par with emergency room doctors and nurses (Am. Federation of Teachers, 2017).
With fewer qualified educators,
Public school teachers in the U.S. are leaving at record rates - 8% annually take early retirement, while an astounding 44% leave before their fifth year (Learning Policy Institute, 2016). Most shockingly, trends show attrition rates double in high poverty districts, leaving the most high needs students with the most inexperienced teachers.
And greater mental health needs of students.
Adding to teacher stress is the overwhelming needs of students and lack of support to help them. Teenage suicide has doubled in the past decade, mirroring rates of depression, clinical anxiety, and bullying nationwide (Pew Research, 2019).
Everyone knows the solution, yet have never been trained.
While SEL is a priority at the elementary level, core instruction and high stakes testing mandates take precedence starting in middle school. Few teachers are willing to take the time to do the difficult work, nor have they ever been trained themselves.
USERS
Meet Anthony - your jaded middle-aged teacher
Anthony has been around for a decade and doesn't care about all that touchy feely stuff. All he cares about is teaching math, his own peace, and getting through the day without incident. His attitude about teaching SEL: "Isn't that the counselor's job?" He will only do anything extra that is abundantly simple and requires next to zero to setup and maintain.
Now meet Emily - your sweet, terrified new teacher
Emily was an Art History major, but decided to get her teaching certificate because she has such a huge heart for kids. Classroom management is trial by fire, a skill that Emily has zero experience in. The boisterous 8th graders smell her fear and lack respect for her. "I care so deeply for my kids and want them to be successful, but there is not enough hours in the day." She cries on her way home daily while she considers calling in sick again tomorrow.
SOLUTION
Mindful Morning helps teachers create a peaceful classroom environment
As part of a classroom morning routine, the goal of Mindful Morning is to reduce teacher stress levels during the hectic morning while aligning student mindset to the day of learning ahead.
ROLE
As a single designer during this 3.5 month project, I first tackled secondary research and user interviews, beginning with teenagers. I was quickly reminded of the cognitive development of a 13 year old and shifted users to focus on teachers.
After gaining a comprehensive understanding of the problems teachers face surrounding SEL instruction, the solution converged with the simplest path forward for the stressed secondary teacher.
Following the problem definition, the design process then began with mood boarding, style guide development, and icon design. Assumptions were exposed during usability testing, leading to a final prototype with more clarity and comfort for the user.
PROCESS
Map interview findings
Mapping the research allowed for key insights and two distinct personas to be revealed through the interviews: greyer Apathetic Anthony and greener Empathetic Emily.
Synthesize research insights
The key insights and quotes show differing teacher's attitude and behaviors surrounding SEL instruction.
Converge ideas
The most inspiring ideas collected here show the teacher user stories. As a teacher I want to:
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Have more time to teach my content
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Manage a chaotic class
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Develop classroom community
Layout information
Teachers demand the sitemap be as simple as possible else they will not use it. As a Apathetic Anthony said in interviews, "I'm still trying to learn what you shoved down our throats last year!"
Visualize the adolescent struggle
Attempting to capture the essence of the tumultuous journey through puberty, I first explored dark, moody natural elements which proved too dark. Inspired by the film Avatar and a teen's love of anime, ethereal gradients and the magical motion of Japanese illustrator Yumei were discovered. The color is getting closer, but still not eye-poppingly bold enough to wake up and engage a tired teenager.
The final scheme provides the right balance of contrast and rainbow electricity to grab distracted teenager's attention in the morning.
Dark Moody Nature
Dreamy Anime
Electric Watercolor
Abstract icons for abstract feelings
The icon development began with half-circle color play, loosely connecting to the five elements: earth, fire, wind, water, ether. The elemental connection proved too limiting for the abstract, internal world of understanding the wide range of emotions explored in Mindful Morning. The final energy orbs represent the energy centers in the body and the elusive nature of ever-changing feelings.
The first styleguide stuck closely to the Electric Watercolor scheme but continued to feel off. Dialing in the bright orange and lemon yellow and simply changing the background to a dark indigo acheived the Avatar feel from early ideation.
In addition to the color scheme, a fun script title font joined Brandon Grotesque: Coquette. This bold script provides a fun contrast to the simplicity of Brandon's perfect caps. The connection: the circluar O's in both font selections.
Icon Iterations
Styleguide 1
Styleguide 2
Sketches to Hi-Fidelity
The hi-fidelity mockups generally stayed true to the original simplistic sketches. Guerilla usability tests suggested letting go of the natural elements, seen here in the early sketch.
Home Sketch
Category Sketch
Home Wireframe
Category Wireframe
Home Mockup
Category Mockup
Introducing Mindful Morning
Mindful Morning takes the guess work and training out of teaching the most critical skills in education: Social-Emotional Learning. Applying research-backed strategies from scholars, psychologists, and yogis alike, Mindful Morning equips all learners with self-management tools for their toolbox through a daily 5-minute mindfulness practice.
Teachers project the video of the day with one-click or explore the video library based on student need.
Projecting onto a 70+ inch Promethean Interactive Whiteboard with beaming Google Chromecast capabilities, allows for novel tactile engagement with students. These touch screen technologies have begun to be installed in early-adopting, well-funded schools and districts - from my experience in late 2018.
Spark conversation &
build community
The Digital Age has left our students unsure and anxious about academic conversations in the classroom. Mindful Morning presents thought-provoking questions and visualizations to practice gratitude, resiliency, and growth mindset.
Guided Think-Pair-Shares build community through engaging questions and empathy-building amongst peers.
Calm a chaotic classroom
with one click
Difficult to get the class focused in the morning? Just returned from a fire drill?
Designed for the disengaged teenager, this cinematic experience engages the senses, inviting calm and quiet into the everyday. Here's a preview:
Start the morning with
intention & delight
Our students are coming to school with a host of challenges and family traumas, most too big for one teacher to bear. Mindful Morning helps center and focus the anxious, distracted mind towards the day of learning ahead.
By being "filled up" with positive messages and inspiring direction, our young people face the day with a greater sense of hope and resiliency.
KEY LEARNINGS
Trust the Process
Letting go of getting it right the first time and letting the users decide was challenging at first, then liberating. This user-centered mindset freed up my sometimes arduous decision-making process to move forward to the next step with user needs as the guide.
Raise the rabbit hole floor
My personal connection to this project led to many nights doing a deep dive of secondary research to ensure I was designing the right thing for the right problem. Sifting through loads of secondary research when a high-level understanding of the problem was already achieved was futile. In the future, I will stick to a short secondary research timeline and move forward with good enough for now.
Clarity of audience, purpose, message
On the long research road to problem definition, I held on too tightly to creating a solution for both teachers and students simultaneously. These dual user groups fogged up my purpose during the affinity mapping phase of ideation. It wasn't until I removed the teenager user stories to focus solely on teachers needs that the path forward began to take shape.
The importance of clarity was also learned from an eye-opening usability testing experience where users struggled to understand the site's purpose through words alone. The purpose should be perceived immediately visually.
NEXT STEPS
A critical moment for public education
There are many features that arose from primary and secondary research that would take this product to a new level of classroom innovation. The touchscreen capability of the Promethean Interactive Display makes this application an exciting one to pursue, specifically with the randomizer wheel feature that kids of all ages adore.
Next steps must address user concerns that arose during usability testing: leadership buy-in and a connection to English Language Learners. These key user needs are being implemented in the next iteration of Mindful Morning.
Our students' mental health needs coming into the 2020-21 school year will be of critical importance, as well as filling vacant teacher positions with the looming post-corona exodus. I truly believe Mindful Morning has the potential to change school culture and help manage classrooms in these uncertain and scary times.
