Designing fee management system for tuition teachers
Superteacher is a platform built for independent teachers to help them manage their classes more efficiently, solving real problems they are facing in Teaching, Management, and Business.
Client Project
Education
User Research, Information Architecture, Storyboarding,
Visual Design,
User Evaluation
Challenge
Independent tuition teachers face numerous challenges in managing their fee collection, including time-consuming manual tracking of payments, discomfort in requesting fees, limited options in setting fee structures and managing delicate situations with parents who struggle to pay on time.
“ How might we help independent tuition teachers manage fee collection and manage payment? ”
Results
The final solution is a fee management sections on the dashboard that allows teachers to create fee structures for the batches, track all the fee payments and manage the fee status along with the ability to send reminders, mark students paid, get notifications and track scholarship applications.
This will improve the platform's efficiency and accuracy of the financial operations and enabling teachers to focus on instruction.
35%
Improved fee setup process
90%
Pain points got addressed
2x
Active engagement
🔎 Research
Literature Review
I started by learning more about the product and the industry from the information available on the internet. The education industry has traditionally been slow to adopt new technology, but in recent years, the widespread availability of smart devices and cheap internet connections has changed this landscape.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of technology in education, creating new opportunities for innovation in this space.
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Enhancing Teaching Experience
The first area of focus is on improving the teaching experience, by providing features such as:
The ability to create and manage multiple batches for coaching or private classes, Scheduling and conducting live classes, and Assigning tests and assignments to students.
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Streamlining Management
The second area of focus is on streamlining the management of classes and students. This includes features such as:
Managing class schedules, course plans, and fee structures for all batches A student relationship management (CRM) system The ability to invite students to specific batches.
📈
Driving Growth
The final area of focus is on driving growth for teachers and their businesses. This includes features such as:
The ability to create your own app, website, and brand Marketing and advertisement tools Customer relationship management tools to build and maintain strong relationships with students and parents.
User Interviews
I interviewed 6 teachers including my old tuition teachers and family friends who are educators. Through these interviews, I gained insights into the day-to-day challenges that independent teachers face with respect to fee collection and management.
Keeping Track of Fees
• Tuition teachers track batch fees manually by on paper calculation.
• Despite the difficulty, like forgetting details, they use this due to the simplicity and ease of use.
Discomfort in Asking
• 4 teachers said that collecting fees can be challenging and time-consuming, requiring them to have a thick skin.
• They deal with parents who cannot pay on time and find a balance between maintaining relationships and money.
Fee Structure
• Monthly fee structure is preferred as it gives predictable and steady flow of income and also, it easier for parents.
• For teachers accepting installments, they tend to limit to 4 installments because of less administrative burden.
Discounts and Late fees
• They often discounts or waive fees for brilliant students facing financial difficulties.
•Late fee submissions are still a common occurrence, and imposing fines is a last resort to address this issue.
Pain Points
🧑🏫
Challenging fee collection
Collecting fees can be a time-consuming process that requires handling delicate situations with parents who may struggle to pay on time.
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Manual tracking of fees
Small independent tuition teachers track batch fees manually, leading to potential errors and difficulties in remembering important details.
📈
Managing fee structure
Independent teachers face limited options in setting up a fee structure, often relying on monthly fees or limited installments.
💡 Ideation
Brainstorming
Once I had the pain points and insights from the interviews, I then took all of this information and put it on a whiteboard, where I utilized the mind mapping technique to help me break down the problems and come up with new ideas.
It helped in visually connecting and expanding on my thoughts, making it easier to see potential solutions and relationships between different problems.
Design Scope
The following pain points were identified as a result of analyzing and synthesizing the data collected from the user interviews.
These pain points were determined to be the most pressing issues faced by the teachers and were used to design solution later in the process.
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Constraints
• Using the existing design language
• System should be similar to real world
• Solution focus on teacher side not student side
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Requirements:
• Ensure user is able to track fee collection
• Freedom to set and edit fee structure
• Manual control available over payment
• Updates on payment & waiver requests
⭐
Features
• Visual tracker and graphs for fee tracking and easy management
• Fee structure setup and edit feature for new batches
• Buttons and icons to manually control of fee status, remove student and reminders
• Notification sub-section to stay informed with updates and student requests
Information Architecture
I further explored the details of the features mentioned previously in the information architecture, where I designed a flow for the user journey in all the directions related to fee tracking and management.
🌈 Visual Design
Wireframes and Iterations
After finalizing the user flow and information architecture, I moved on to the user interface design phase.
During this stage, I created sketches to explore potential ways to enhance the existing design and address the previously identified problems. I went through multiple iterations of every component and screen, constantly making adjustments until I was satisfied with the result.
High Fidelity Design
After several rounds of iterations of sketching and creating low-fidelity wireframes, I came up with the following high-fidelity designs using Figma.
Fee Dashboard
After several rounds of iterations of sketching and creating low-fidelity wireframes, I came up with the following high-fidelity designs using Figma.
Fee Structure Setup
a. While creating the new batch
b. After creating the batch
Fee Structure Setup
There are two states: Hover state and Multi-Select state to perform the four important actions of the teacher:
1. Send fee reminder to the student
2. Mark student(s) fee paid
3. Remove the student from the batch if necessary
4. Approve or reject student’s request for scholarship or fee waiver
