Digital Collaboration Platform For Parents And Teachers
How we helped EdPlace launch its educational app for iOS platform that helps busy parents monitor the academic performance of their children
Background
EdPlace is devoted to engaging parents in their child's educational progress. Will Lord, the Head of Product and Technology at EdPlace approached Net Solutions with the requirement of an app for iOS platform, that would make it easy for working parents to assign tasks to their children and review their academic progress, on the go.
The Problem
With his extensive experience in online educational projects, Will was looking for an app, compatible with both iPhone and iPad, which could be used by parents as well as kids of different age-groups. Our major concern was ensuring that the huge amount of content in the app stayed manageable for the client and even children could use it comfortably, without compromising on its classiness.
The Challenges
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Downloading and Uploading Large-sized Files or Content with Memory Efficiency
Since this app required uploading as well as downloading lots of content in variant sized files, because the worksheets were meant to be used by children from the age-group of 5 to 16, we needed to add such functionality which would prevent writing a lot of code over and over again.
Presenting Different Types of Content
The admin of EdPlace which consists of authors and reviewers, had the authority to upload the worksheets, evaluate them and then score the performance of the child accordingly. However, the types of questions in each of these 3000+ worksheets were variant - subjective, objective, matrices, diagrammatic etc. and these had to be represented in the required format.
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More Features to Engage Users
Since the target audience for the application included students, features which would motivate them and enhance user-engagement were crucial.
The Solution
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Building the CMLibrary for Ease-of-use and Memory Efficiency
We built a CMLibrary especially for this application to speed up the process, making it memory-efficient and preventing memory leaks. This CMLibrary also supports caching, thus reducing content-upload time in case of heavy graphic files. The library also supports data formats such as JSON, XML etc. Now, large amounts of data could travel between the app and the server without glitch, thus improving the UI and UX of the app.
Developing Different Scenarios for a Variety of Content
We created different scenarios along with the inclusion of drag and drop based controls for the various types of questions in every worksheet. This prevents the questionnaire from being monotonous and helps in maintaining the interest of the child.
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Compelling features for User Engagement
Auto Assign Worksheets: With this feature worksheets will be assigned automatically to the student based on their last performance
Informative Student Dashboard: Helps students analyse their performance and find out their strong as well as weak subjects
Rewards: Badges and rewards keep the student encouraged to perform better. Even the parents can add some special ones.
Comparing Child's Progress: The parent can compare the child's performance with others of the same age-group
I think what makes them different as a company is that they invest in their staff. I think it's about the effort that they put in to make sure that people have got the tools, skills and support that they need to do the best job possible and it really showed while I was there and it continues to show now. I feel that they really have an understanding of how to get the best out of their team.
The Result
Already a favourite amongst both parents and students, this app has already gained a considerable market for itself. The app is expected to become a hit as an increasing number of users in UK feel it is a useful academic application with great user experience.