The interviews and informal chats with teachers and parents provided some in-depth knowledge about neurodiverse families and Special Education Needs (SEN) support that's available in mainstream schools in Northern Ireland and the UK. The parents and teachers work as a team to manage their children with learning disabilities to provide a quality learning experience in mainstream schools. The teachers are confident about their approach and mentioned that they do their best to help children who need more attention than others, using various techniques and guidance to improve their learning abilities. Teachers would utilise audio/visual materials, books and online materials that are available to teach children in primary schools. Although parents agree that teachers do support as much as they can because the teachers have a full class of students to manage and they’re extremely busy and undivided attention can't be expected from them. This would mean the parents have to depend on other resources and options to get support from.
My online survey got 13 parents and around 5 teachers' responses. Most parents marked writing skills as challenging for their children. The second most challenging task is reading. From all the desk research and chatting with people, I gathered that a child who finds writing and reading challenging for them, might not necessarily be unintelligent. There are other skills alongside that they might find easy to accomplish. We must acknowledge that for a child’s morale and confidence building. There can be tasks and activities that they enjoy. I made sure to pose a related question to the above in my questionnaire - What are your child’s strengths? Most parents choose creativity and imagination as their child’s strengths. Keeping in mind that this information might further help me with certain personalisation features in the product that I want to develop. The parents and teachers also came back with their choice of reading and writing practice apps and other materials they use to teach their children based on which I did my competitor's analysis and reviews.
<aside> 📌 Getting in touch with the parents:
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It is evident from the parent's and teachers' online forums that children with learning disabilities require tailor-made plan of action and interventions. An extra bit of guidance. An idea might work for one child but not for another. A bit of tweak in the plan where parents and teachers must be involved, keeping in mind that the child finds it engaging and interesting. But the word ‘personalisation’ is key.
I went ahead with three personas - Sarah (parent), Méabh (11-year-old child) and Jenny (primary school teacher). This process brings our attention to the three individuals having difficulty finding solutions to their respective problems. Sarah, mum of Méabh wants to assist and help her child with her studies so she can independently finish her tasks. Jenny is a busy teacher but wants to support Méabh by bringing her up to the speed with the rest of her peers but it can be challenging when Méabh needs extra time and attention than what Jenny can provide.
The responses from all three above users to the map questions helped me put down my observations and understanding into statements. It is beneficial for pinpointing exact the situations my users were in and identifying exactly where the interventions are required.
For this process, I concentrated on the child with learning difficulties and the parent to envision how the app will come in contact with them and how it should ideally fit into the child’s education journey. Again, this would mean that the app needs to cater when other interventions fail. Or the app must work in tandem with other interventions that the parents and teachers introduce into the child's education journey. The app would become a part of everyday routine. I drew inspiration from apps like Duolingo and Wordle. A daily action or a habit of practising and revising but with a time limit on screen.
User Journey Map
User Personas