Mizuho Takahashi | UX/UI/Visual Designer

Tutoring and Learning Mobile App Platform Focused on Emerging Markets

Schoolbird is committed to providing a path to American colleges and universities for high-achieving students from Vietnam and other emerging economies. We offer a user-friendly mobile learning platform to help students with their daily homework, enhance their English language skills and improve their academic performance across crucial college-preparation subjects.

Background

Schoolbird was founded in San Francisco in 2019, to recruit American university graduates to teach English in Vietnam. When the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted global travel, we developed our exclusive Homework Buddy mobile app. The result: an innovative mobile platform for booking homework helpers and a K-12 English language program, designed for students in emerging economies.

Problem

Education access limited by economics 

American education is even more inaccessible

Cost effective after school learning

Solution

A tutoring and after-school learning platform made affordable for the average family in emerging economies.

My role

 UX/UI/Visual Designer 

User Research

Research Goals

• Understand the tutoring service and online education market, especially on the mobile end.

• Identify the target audience of Schoolbird.

• Learn about the main competitors of Schoolbird, as well as their strength and weakness.

Assumption: 

Business Assumptions

  1.  We believe our customers have a need to access affordable tutoring app.
  2. Their needs can be solved with a mobile app to match students with tutors.
  3. Our initial customers are students who live in a big city in Vietnam.
  4. The key value a customer wants to get out of my product is to have help for study whenever he/she likes.
  5. The customer can also get these additional benefits: To have an access to English classes and make a clear path to enter American college.
  6. We will acquire the majority of our customers through social media marketing and word-of-mouth.
  7. We will make money by charging a monthly fee from the app.
  8. Our primary competition in the market will be larger tutoring companies.
  9. We will beat them due to our positioning as a tutoring company, a platform designed for all students who seek better opportunities in Vietnam.
  10. We will solve this through a more robust technical implementation.
  11. We will know we are successful when we see the following changes in customer behavior: increasing sign-up and daily sign-ins.
  12. What other assumptions do we have that, if proven false, will cause our business/product to fail? Users have strong dislike for not flexible tutor schedules, and are often expensive. 

 

User assumptions 

  1. Who is the user? Students in Vietnam 
  2. Where does our product fit in their life? At home, daily study time 
  3. What problem will our product solve? Uneasy scheduling with tutors. 
  4. When and how our product is used? Whenever a user wants to call a tutor to help study, keep up their motivation to study. 
  5. What features are important? Book tutor (in-person or online), English classes, and American college pathway.
  6. How should our product look and behave? Functional, fun to use, motivates students to be smart, and minimalist that users can book a tutor or take a class within a few clicks. 

Market Research

C2C Tutoring Service Market

• Overall, C2C tutoring service market is keep growing during and even stronger after the pandemic. 

• The latest estimates show that global tutoring market will total $4B in 2020, growing to hit $218B in 2027. 

• Over 22M Vietnamese students, out of which approximately 2M are high school students planning to study abroad.

Product Focus

Schoolbird focuses on academic grading at school and long-term homework help, whereas, most others focus on college level one-off tutoring, library or freelancer marketplace.

Audience

Who are we talking to?

The more precise and detailed the better. Age, sex, demographics, psychographics; buying and usage habits; values, attitudes, lifestyles, occupation, online frequency?

Key target audience insight

What insights do we have about them? What do they care about? 

–    English fluency

–    American music and culture

–    Degrees from an American college/university

–   K-Pop, anime and games

Current consumer beliefs, understanding, and barriers

Desired Action: What do we want them to think, feel, or do?

What is the most compelling thing we want the target to think after they experience the project?

A concise statement of the effect the ad should have on consumers.

Model

Tutoring subscription and service fees. A $50 per month subscription membership. A tutoring marketplace service fee/commission for matching teachers and experts learning program packages with prospective students.

How might we?

Problem: Students aren’t focus on their study at home

  1. How might we use student’s energy to study? 

Problem: Users aren’t aware of the full product offerings

  1. How might we increase awareness of the full product offerings?

Problem: Users find the calling tutor process difficult 

  1. How might we make the calling tutor process quick and intuitive? 

Problem: Users often unsure how to apply for American university

  1. How might we make users show a clear path to enter American university?

Problem: For younger student parents, they are often too busy to help their kid’s homework and study 

  1. How might we help user’s homework and study?

Problem: Users want flexibility, they want to book a tutor whenever they want

  1. How might we increase users’ flexibility in scheduling tutors? 

Problem: In general, studying alone at home is boring and not engaging

  1. How might we make users engage in studying at home alone? 

Problem: Users unsure whether they have a chance to apply to American universities  

  1. How might we encourage students to apply to American universities?