Exercise #1
At the beginning of each new semester or school year, teachers are faced with the challenge of remembering names for a large number of new students. Design an experience to help an educator match faces to names, with the goal of shortening the time needed to reach complete un-aided accuracy.
Questions
Starting the whole process, I like to first list out questions that could help me with the development of my product. These questions then help me visualise the potential issues, suggest solutions and ultimately shape the best experience. On reading the prompt, I wrote down the questions that popped into my head. I also approached my friends who worked in the education sector and those who, in general, have to remember a lot of people's names in their line of work.
1. What is the most effective way to maximise memorising something?
2. How do we obtain the photos and information from the students?
3. Who are the teachers that are going to use this? (Level of education)
4. What is the average student-teacher ratio (STR)?
5. How much time do teachers have? How committed are they?
6. What are some potential obstacles in my product?
7. How can I optimise the experience in a simple but best way possible?
Efficient and effective memory optimisatioN
There are mainly 4 types of memory: sensory, short-term, working and long-term.
Sensory memory is a very brief (~3 seconds) recall of a sensory experience, such as what we just saw or heard. Some compare sensory memory to a quick snapshot of what you just experience that quickly disappears.
Short-term memory is that brief period of time where you can recall information you were just exposed to. Short-term often encompasses anywhere from 30 seconds to a few days, depending on who is using the term.
Working memory is often used by some researches to distinguish from short-term memory, though the two overlap. It is defined as the ability of our brains to keep a limited amount of information available long enough to use it. Working memory helps process thoughts and plans, as well as carries out ideas.
Long-term memory encompasses memories that range from a few days to decades. In order for successful learning to take place, information has to move from the sensory or the short-term memory to the long-term memory.
Tips and tricks for remembering something:
When it comes to attempting to memorise something, I have found a few best hacks around it (because just staring at it for hours doesn't really help) -
1. Prioritising the most necessary information
2. Word association
3. Visualisation
4. Repetition
5. Getting creative (make up stories or acronyms!)
How many students does the average teacher have?
This is an important question. The quantity of names to memorise, from 10 to 1000s, require different solutions to tackle the issue at hand. One could easily remember 10 names, but face difficulty from the 50th onwards. The strategy to remember 100 names will differ from the one for 5000 names.
According to the glossary of education reform, the student-teacher ratio "expresses the relationship between the number of student enrolled in a school and the number of full-time equivalent teachers employed by the school." For example, a school that has a 10:1 student-teacher ratio would have ten times as many students as full-time teachers. The student-teacher ratio of any given school or school district is frequently used to judge the quality education.
After researching into Secondary Schools in Singapore, a statistics report shows that the average Student-Teacher Ratio (STR) has been declining. As of 2018, the STR is 11.6 students to 1 teacher.
According to most articles I found, the ideal student-teacher ratio is 1 to 12 or 15, although it really depends on the age of the students, their academic needs, the taught subject and the goals of the teacher. Student-Teacher interaction is incredibly important. It can be used as a tool to measure teacher workload as well as the allocation of resources, particularly in public schools. More importantly, it can be an indicator of the amount of individual attention any single child is likely to receive, keeping in mind that not all classes are going to be the same.
user research
I slid into my friends' DMs, those who are teachers, and those whose jobs require them to memorise tons of terms and names of people, and asked them for their wise wisdom when it comes to having to memorise names and terms. My friends are angels and referred me to their friends/colleagues as well for me to gather more intel.
My old and new friends had this to say:
"I do the typical thing you do when you can't think of anything haha I do an icebreaker round where they stood up, introduced their name, hobbies and something special about them. Its a fun bonding process, but sometimes in a class of 35 or so, it takes up at least one class slot and we have to catch up on the syllabus the next day."
"Repetition, I'd say. I used to look at the list of names and terms I had to memorise for my job, and just kept repeating them out loud and in my head. Sounded like a chant, but hey it worked."
"We had a seating plan, and it was printed and attached to my table at the front of the classroom. It helped when I had to call out someone's name."
"I know not to judge a person by their looks, but that's how I remember some of my students. For example, 'David with the glasses' or some other special attribute they have."
"I take attendance every morning, helps me put names to faces so I don't have to channel all my energy into remembering all their names"
At this moment, I would like to point out that when I was in school, my class actually had 3 Joeys, and because we were sat in alphabetical order, the 3 Joeys were sat together, one of the teachers, instead of going "Joey, Joey, Joey" during attendance taking, went with their surnames instead, going "Joey Tan, Lim, Chen" (*not their real surnames haha)
During my research, I also came across similar questions on sites like Quora. The findings were seating charts, memorising, finding a way to incorporate their name-memorising into a game, learning them by group (band and team kids, kids from certain hallway intersections, kids who arrive early or leave late and of course kids who were sent to him with problems), and one even went to being fined a few cents by his students when he was unable to name his students.
How are we going to obtain the data?
Facing an average of at least 50 students, it will be super time and effort consuming for the teacher to add the individual student's photo and information manually. There is also the possibility that the school do not retain photographs of their students, or that it would not be the most updated version of the student.
Lets get cracking! (no eggs were harmed in the process)
THE Product
There were many things I could add into my app, but I decided to focus and prioritise the main function for now; memorising the names of their students. In this time and age, Google is one of the biggest tech giants, and people are sure to have used Google in one way or another (gMail, gDrive, etc.), making it user-friendly and accessible to both educator(s) and students.
My app could also be used for more than just memorising of names and data collation, it could also be connected to the school's portal, assisting in e-learning and online submissions of work. I also renamed teachers into "educators"; a teacher is someone who teaches. That is, they present the information and their job is done. An educator is someone who educates. That is, they present the information, asses, revisit, and assess again until they are satisfied with the learning that has taken place.
Cite
I chose the name "Cite", as a synonym for the word "remember", and also because of the wordplay where it sounds similar to "sight", which is one of the best ways to optimise memory - visualisation.
User journey
One of the ideas that popped into my head was to utilise the students and their own phones, having them insert the data and the educator(s) just collating. There will be a unique QR code on the desks of the students, that will bring the user to the app, where they can register or start using when they scan it. The students can then individually insert their own data into the app, instead of having the educator(s) manually do it themselves.
User flow
When it comes to planning out the user flow, I like to sketch out my plans (preferably on a whiteboard because its easier to erase and it also helps the environment by using less paper!) and then digitalising them. This helps me visualise better if my user flow is smooth, and helps me optimise my product. You can see the digitalised version below.
Mockups
With my user flow done up, its go time! My style is to sketch out low-fi wireframes (as shown above), before making an interactive pdf with a high-fi version afterwards. Once that is done up, the final mockup is worked on and shown. I went with a clean layout, to ensure the app looks simple, modern and minimalistic, not adding to the already heavy content and schedule educators and students go through.
App icon
The app icon is designed with Google in mind, explaining the influence of chosen colours. The icon is a simple illustration of the typical facial recognition a mobile phone user would recognise on their iPhones, or apps that require facial recognition log-ins.
Loading and Welcome screens
Like all Google apps, the loading screen is the product logo, followed by a simple registration option of the user's profession in the school, in order to better adjust the app's experience. When selected, the option box turns blue (e.g. the student box).
Registration for students (left) and educators (right)
What comes afterwards is the registration part, where students and educators are given the same questions, with the exception for form classes for the educator, in the event that they do not have one.
Last part of registration
Users are then given a choice to pick their passwords, as well as enable the Face/Touch ID function built-in their mobile phones. This allows them to experience a faster log-in and a password for back-up in the event that Face ID was unable to work (e.g. if they had a mask on).
Review and new log-in page
A function that I appreciate, but don't see in almost half the apps I personally use, is the page where you get to review the answers to the form you just filled in, before confirming submission. This helps the user(s) ensure that the data provided was accurate, and optimises the experience of the app.
After successfully registering, the users will see the new log-in page the next time they open the app.
App landing page
With the design inspired by Google Drive, the landing page of the app shows a search bar at the top, with 4 main navigation buttons at the bottom. The displays also show the announcements, important dates (such as the National Exams), timetables and a few other features shown above.
A click of the burger menu on the top left of the search bar slides out the app's side menu which consists of:
1. Profile
2. Timetable & Schedule (classes, meetings, exams etc.)
3. Classes & Students (classes they teach, as well as the students involved, with their photos attached)
4. Announcements (major announcements and notifications)
5. Guess the Face! (the memory game where they have to match the face to a student)
6. Guess the Name! (the memory game where they have to match the names to a face of a student)
7. Game Achievements (history of games, timing and scores of the tests)
8. Contacts (contacts of the teachers in the same school)
9. Messages (an option to send a direct message (dm) to another teacher in the app)
10. School Website (link to the school's website)
11. Settings
12. FAQ & Help
Classes & Students page
Find their classes and students are easy. Similar to a Google Drive layout, the folders are sorted by their classes, and icons being replaced with a graduation hat instead. There is also an option of a sub-header for the folder, which the educator(s) can use to label the class that is being taught, i.e. Class 4E1, sub-header: A. Math. There is also a search option if a teacher is looking for a specific name, which then uses the elimination method and removes folders with no searched subject found them.
Add options menu (left) and Folder options menu (right)
Viewing of the Student List (left) and Seating Plan (right)
In order to encourage memory, repetition is helpful. To make it a more enjoyable process, a memory is also available on the app. "Name the Person" and "Match that Name" basically involves a multiple choice quiz where the user is tasked with matching the right faces and names together.
Name the Person (left) and Results of Name the Person (right)
Match that Name (left) and Results of Match that Name (right)
That's all for now! Have comments? Drop me an email and let me know.