Living Room Tutors

Client: Living Room Tutors (LRT) is a Minnesota-based non-profit that takes volunteer student tutors and matches them to students in need of (virtual) tutoring. Living Room Tutors serves primarily as match-maker in this system, offering their services to pair up tutees’ needs with tutors who have similar interest areas or the necessary academic strengths. Once matched, the tutor and tutee are responsible for establishing their meeting schedules, picking a virtual platform for conducting the meetings, and ending the partnership when appropriate (e.g., no longer needed or no longer a good fit).

Overview

Problem: LRT is looking for help in creating a user-focused design strategy that supports their current and future organizational goals and improves the tutor/tutee experience.

Results: Based on research conducted, a multi-touchpoint strategy intended to provide structure and support for the tutor as a means to improve the organization’s overall credibility for the tutee and their guardians were developed. From there, prototypes of these touchpoints were created to fit into each part of the user’s journey.

Approach: Competitive Analysis | Secondary Research I Journey Mapping | Stakeholder Interview I Feature Cards | Annotated Wireframes I TouchPoint Prototypes

My Roles: Researcher, Strategist, Designer

The Challenge.

Discover and create a multi-touch point strategy that reflects LRT’s goals and helps support the tutors and tutee’s experience.

Research Deep Dive

 

Competitive Audit

The first thing I did was conduct a competitive audit to evaluate LRT’s current touchpoints and evaluate their competitors to get a better overall understanding of what is out there.

I looked into 3 competing and comparable websites and it was determined that LRT lacks touch points that support the structure of the program. This lack of structure impacts the credibility of the organization compared to its competitors.

 

Secondary Research

After the competitive audit, I wanted to understand the best methods for structuring a tutoring program. I conducted secondary research using peer-reviewed articles to look into the data to support peer-to-peer tutoring’s benefits and how programs are best designed. I found that peer-to-peer tutoring is proven to be beneficial for both tutors and tutees. However, well-established guidelines and evaluation systems need to be in place in order for the program to be successful.

 

Stakeholder Interview

After the deep dive into research, an interview with the stakeholder was conducted to get a better understanding of the company, its mission and values, and the current state of its program.

This interview illuminated the lack of support given to tutors after the matching process. It also reinforced, based on feedback given to the stakeholder, that they lose potential tutee sign-ups because their guardians are worried about the credibility of the program. Therefore, improving trust and organization credibility was a large area the stakeholder wanted to improve.

Journey Map

As part of a team, we created a user journey map to demonstrate the tutors and tutees/guardians’ journey through the discovery of the program all the way to off-boarding and leaving the program.

My role was to gather the secondary research and synthesize Living Room Tutor’s annual survey information for key data points.

I found significant research to support pain points throughout the journey. As a group, we determined that user touchpoints could be added to give support to the tutor and add credibility to the program in these areas, which could improve the experience for the tutee and their guardian.

Prototypes

Low Fidelity Concept Cards

Our team divided up the touchpoints on the map. I was responsible for marketing, scheduling/attendance, and evaluations.

Once I had a better understanding of the user’s journey and the research behind it, I created 3 initial concepts of my touchpoints that could help improve the user’s experience. This served as an efficient way to present my idea to the group and get feedback before going further into wireframing.

View Concepts Cards

Annotated Touch Point Prototypes

Next, I created low-mid fidelity prototypes and wireframes using Excalidraw and Figma. I then used Figma to create annotated wireframes that were presented to the client.

  1. Marketing Peer to Peer Tutoring Credibility

Goal: The goal of these marketing resources was to provide credibility for LRT’s program so that guardians of tutees can trust in the program and be more willing to sign their tutee up.

Rationale: Based on the stakeholder interview, one of the company’s main goals was to improve its credibility so that guardians trust its program. From parent surveys, 2 out of 12 parents wished the program had older and more responsible tutors. These marketing posts were designed to help both of those areas.

The letter serves as a way to LRT’s mission and story upfront and shows that they are legitimate and professional.

The social media posts with quotes from research, help back the peer-to-peer style method of tutoring and show its value. This style of tutoring also sets LRT apart from the competition which primarily uses adult tutors. Being able to prove the value with proven research, could help drive up overall credibility and sign-ups.

  1. This is an example social media post that highlights a quote from a research article that backs up the value of peer to peer tutoring

  2. This is “A Letter From Our Founder” that helps tell the story of LRT in a more personal way to help connect to tutees and tutors

2. Marketing Tutor Spotlight

Goal: The goal of these marketing resources was to add credibility to the tutors and serve as a way to honor and reward them.

Rationale: The shareholder discussed that LRT lacked resources to give their volunteers rewards for their hard work. This newsletter and social media spotlight for tutors would help to reward the tutors more frequently and provide credibility by highlighting their skills, showing testimonials, and adding in metrics from sessions. It also adds a personal touch to help connect with tutees and guardians looking for a program to join.

  1. A name and large photo of the tutor would be present at the top.

  2. A testimonial from the tutee or their guardian would help add value and meaning to the spotlight post.

  3. A biography highlighting the tutor’s background, education, skills, and hobbies would be included here.

  4. Metrics based on their tutoring sessions would be listed here to add quantitative value.

  5. The newsletter can be reformatted as a social media post to reach a larger audience.

3. Scheduling Modal

Goal: The goal of this modal is to serve as a way for tutors to keep track of their schedule and attendance for both the tutor and tutee.

Rationale: Based on stakeholder feedback there is currently no system in place to keep track of attendance for tutors or tutees. This has served as a pain point for both types of users.

The scheduling modal would visibly show the upcoming session and allow the tutor to mark attendance for both themselves and the tutor which helps create accountability for the tutor. The monitoring of the tutees attendance helps keep a record for both the tutor and their guardians to ensure the tutor is staying on track.

  1. The modal visibly show any upcoming sessions the tutor has.

  2. This button allows the tutor to make edits to the date and time, or delete it.

  3. The tutor would mark attendance using these buttons at the beginning of each session.

  4. The tutor can quickly view the attendance history of each tutee that they have and see how many sessions they have missed.

  5. The view session history button opens up the same Session History page. If the tutee missed a session a red x will be listed in the far left column.

  6. View Form opens to the session evaluation form that was filled out for the session.

4. Session Evaluation Form (completed by the tutor)

Goal: The goal of this form is to serve as a way for tutors to check in with their tutee and keep track of how each session is going and the progress being made.

Rationale: Based on the stakeholder interview there is not currently a consistent evaluation system in place for tutors to keep track of sessions.
Secondary research conducted showed that establishing an effective and frequent evaluation system for both individuals and the overall program is important to the success of the program.
This evaluation form was designed as a simple touch point to help create a consistent evaluation system. Metrics and answers taken from the form are trackable and can be viewed for reference later on.

  1. the tutor would record the name of the tutee, the date, and give an overall rating (1 being poor and 10 being excellent)

  2. Tutees’ sentiment and stress levels would be recorded by the tutor as a way to see if more support is needed in those areas and help create a more empathetic social support system for the tutee.

  3. The tutor can use these forms to take notes and record important ideas about how the session went. It also serves as a tool to help the tutor self-reflect after each session. These notes would be sent to a log that can be viewed later for reference.

  4. This section would be used to schedule the next session which could be sent to a scheduling feature on a home dashboard. A goal section allows the tutor and tutee to set a goal or objective for the next session to help improve focus.

  5. This would be a modal on a home dashboard that would allow the tutor to open a new evaluation form to fill out or view their log of past forms on a Session History page.

  6. This page allows the tutor to quickly scan key metrics from each session. By clicking “View Form”, the tutor would be able to view the original form they filled out with all of their notes.

Higher Fidelity Form

5. Tutor Evaluation Form

Goal: The goal of this form is to allow the tutee and/or the tutee’s guardian a place to provide feedback about the tutor and the sessions.

Rationale: Based on stakeholder feedback the company currently only has 1 annual feedback survey that they send out. Based on this survey 2 out of 12 parents dealt with tutors that didn’t show up or were not reliable. This survey would be a touchpoint for those tutee parents to give feedback sooner than once a year, which can lead to faster intervention or rematch as needed.

The survey would be sent out once a month and be optional for tutees and guardians. It will mainly serve to help catch pain points and issues earlier and more frequently.

  1. The tutors name would be selected or typed in and the date would be recorded.

  2. An overall session rating would be recorded using the slider.

  3. The tutee or guardian would use the test boxes to write specific notes about what went well, what needs work, or any additional comments that they have.

  4. The submit button would send the form to both the tutor and to Living Room Tutors

Multi-Touch Point Strategy Prototype Packet

The final step was to create a report as part of a team that would be sent to the stakeholders at Living Room Tutors. The report included all of our annotated touchpoint prototypes.

View Full Prototype Packet

Next Steps

  • Usability Testing
    Testing the usability of the proposed touch points would be important to gain insight into the value of the features with users to gauge which are the highest priority to implement.

  • Further Research Into Other Touch Points

    Further research into other touchpoints that could help create more structure and support for tutors and provide credibility to the overall structure of the organization would be valuable.

  • Expansion of TouchPoint Features
    Further design development of large web-based components, including the dashboard, would be important to help fully visualize the entire concept and assess its functionality. This could be done with IA diagrams and wireframes.

Conclusion

Living Room Tutors has a great organizational goal of providing free tutoring services by connecting tutors to tutees, however, their program design lacked structure and support for the tutor. This lack of support for the tutor affected how credible potential tutees and their parents viewed the organization. My goal was to support the client’s vision while helping to determine which features would add the most value to the user’s experience. I proposed 5 touch points prototypes that I felt were the highest priority in the tutor’s and tutee’s journey through LRT. Overall I believe these touchpoints would help to support the tudor and create a more credible program that is trusted by the tutee and their guardians.