Evidence Me
Improving teachers' experience recording student observations and maintaining student progress records
Improving teachers' experience recording student observations and maintaining student progress records
Teacher attrition rates are growing in England. A significant factor is the workload carried by educators beyond lesson delivery. Throughout numerous schools in England, Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) practitioners are expected to document student observations, a task that can take up to 18 hours per academic term. This amount of time could be more effectively utilised to actively involve students in learning experiences, plan lessons, or craft resources that address specific student needs.
Whilst Evidence Me, an observation and assessment iPad app, aims to help EYFS teachers quickly record student observations, it is plagued with usability issues and outdated UI that impede, rather than empower, users.
Incorporating a speech-to-text feature allows educators to record observations without the need for typing or disrupting students' engagement by manually entering text on an iPad.
Essential Save and Edit buttons empower users to manage their observations, enhancing the app's overall flow and usability.
Throughout the school term, users now have the ability to swiftly update a student's progress by dragging and dropping learning objectives into Met, Partially Met, and Fully Met categories. This new feature supports educators in lesson preparation, planning for the following term, and significantly reduces the administrative workload.
Project goals
Secondary research
Heuristic analysis
Competitive analysis
Direct observations
User interviews
Persona
POV statement
HMW statement
User flows
Task flows
Wireframes
Visual design
Prototype
Usability tests
Iterations
Next steps
In England, the EYFS curriculum is comprised of more than 400 learning goal statements that must be evidenced in the form of observations by practitioners. A significant number of early years establishments continue to utilise a paper-based approach, which is is costly and time consuming.
2 Simple created Evidence Me with the aim of helping practitioners reduce the time spent on recording observations by using an app. While this has certainly made the process more efficient, the app is not updated regularly and is host to various usability issues.
As an EYFS teacher myself, I had encountered many of these challenges when using Evidence Me and was often left feeling frustrated. I was curious about my colleague's opinions and experiences, and set out to see whether any of these issues could be addressed.
I faced several constraints throughout this project, however they presented opportunities for solutions.
Due to safeguarding, my observations were restricted to EYFS practitioners within a single primary school where Evidence Me was actively used. To ensure a diverse range of viewpoints, I conducted interviews and usability tests involving various practitioners, including teaching assistants, class teachers, and headteachers.
Given that Evidence Me already had established branding, I made sure that additional features I introduced aligned seamlessly with the app's existing style guidelines.
As most teachers use Evidence Me on their iPads, I chose to design features that embed within the current Evidence Me app in the iPadOS system.
Although I only focused on one primary school, I made sure to use a variety of research methods to really grasp how and why the school and its educators utilised Evidence Me.
I wanted to understand how Evidence Me users complete observations so that I could help optimise their experience.
I began by looking into why teachers were required to make assessments and observations. Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services, and Skills, carries out inspections and regulates schools across England to improve lives by raising standards in Education. They encourages practitioners to gather a variety of data through conversations, observations, and reflections to "make informed decisions about how to support children's learning, as part of their wider development."1
They also state:
Considering that Ofsted aims to reduce paperwork, it makes sense why apps like Evidence Me were created to fill the gap in the market. Theoretically, these apps could assist teachers in swiftly capturing images and notes about students, all conveniently stored in a single location.
In their 2021 EYFS policy handbook, the school in which I'd be conducting research in mentions that they record observations, specifically in the 2Simple (Evidence Me) system, to assess development and inform future planning.2
Interestingly, in their 2021 report of the school, Ofsted noted that school staff struggled with workload and suggested this as an area for improvement.3 This called into question whether the tools teachers were required to use, like Evidence Me, were in fact contributing to the unnecessary workload.
1 Gov.uk reducing paperwork - https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/get-help-to-improve-your-practice/reducing-paperwork
2 Orchard Primary School EYFS policy - https://www.orchard.hackney.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/EYFS-Policy.pdf
3 Orchard Primary 2021 Ofsted Report - https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50176838
Auditing Evidence Me's existing user interface and usability quickly uncovered issues that could be effecting the app's efficiency, and thus negatively impacting teachers. I rated the issues between 0-4 based on their impact to usability (0 = no violations found, 4 = usability catastrophe). Below are some of the main issues I found.
Heuristic: Error prevention
Violation: If the user preemptively or accidentally taps on the <Observations button, their observation is uploaded despite being incomplete. The app does not provide any warning or confirmation. This could cause practitioners more time in the future after realising they have X number of incomplete observations to finish.
Recommendation: Provide warning or confirmation message for the user to decide how to proceed.
Severity: 3
Heuristic: Recall instead of recognition
Violation: Users are faced with the task of recalling the Learning Objective and Next step they assigned to each observation. Their other option is to tap on the image to find out. There is no data visualisation of which observations are complete vs. incomplete, or which are missing.
Recommendation: Create visualisation of data or tick list to help users keep track.
Severity: 3
Heuristic: Consistency and standards
Violation: There are no consistent buttons or actions to confirm, save, or delete. Users may be left wondering if the action they wanted was completed, or even frustrated if they're not able to complete their desired action.
Recommendation: Provide consistent buttons.
Severity: 3
Following the heuristic analysis, I engaged in market research to comprehend the strengths of existing observation apps and identify potential opportunities that could be implemented within Evidence Me.
I was excited to observe EYFS teachers and teaching assistants to see how they used Evidence Me in their classrooms and playground. The key things that stood out to me were:
After gathering insights from direct observations, I sat down with the practitioners to have them walk me through how they completed observations. I also wanted to see whether their perspectives aligned with or contradicted the behaviours I previously noted and the issues I had found during my heuristic analysis.
I spoke with a diverse group of EYFS practitioners, including a teaching assistant, two teachers, a phase leader, and the school's headteacher. I was especially curious whether the headteacher held distinct viewpoints or motivations compared to the others who more frequently used the app.
Following the interviews, I created an affinity map to identify patterns in the collected data. Below is a collection of the themes that emerged.
Value Evidence Me brings:
When and how often practitioners complete observations:
Practitioners retrieve observations later:
Typical steps practitioners take to complete an observation:
Features that could improve experience:
To further empathise with Evidence Me's users, I created Destiny. Throughout the design process, I frequently referred back to Destiny.
I thought Evidence Me helped EYFS practitioners record observations quickly, but after talking with them I learned that they spend an excessive amount of time completing observations; therefore flexibility and efficiency should be a consideration for potential solutions.
How might we help EYFS practitioners complete an observation efficiently?
From the research I had done so far, it was clear that any additional features I considered should enhance the efficiency of the observation process. After using the Crazy Eights method to generate ideas, I plotted the ideas on an impact vs. effort matrix. This helped me to determine which features to prioritise.
Below is the feature roadmap I created, outlining the features I worked on during this project under Priority 1 and 2. While I believe the remaining Priority 3 and 4 features could enhance the Evidence Me user experience, I chose to defer them to future iterations due to time constraints.
To visualise how users would move through the app to achieve their goals, I created 3 main flows. These helped to keep the project on track and were updated as the project progressed.
Seeing the flows as sketches helped me work through any potential road blocks and visualise solutions. I explored how the speech-to-text feature and "continue" buttons could help users move ahead. I also looked into adding "Fully met" and "Partially met" levels of achievement to improve data collection, which would hopefully save users time in the future.
By creating and then discussing the lo-fi wireframes below with my mentor and other design students, I was able to make decisions about the following:
This gave users the choice to either type or record notes for their observation. I was curious if the record option could decrease the time needed to complete an observation, as well as gauge EYFS practitioners' responses to it.
Although it adds an additional step to the flow, the recording screen offers users a visual representation of what the app is recording. It also introduces the "Next" button, providing users with additional control.
Previously teachers lacked clarity on the extent to which a student had achieved a learning objective. By asking users to confirm the level of achievement when they create the observation, their records become more accurate and they gain a better overview of the student's progress. This data is then visually represented under the student's Profile.
Teachers voiced their frustration towards repeatedly navigating back to locate selected "Objectives". Placing the "Objective" and "Next Step" together on the same page reduces mental load and ensures a stronger connection between the set "Objective" and chosen "Next Step"
Evidence Me previously lacked any confirmation for its users. Introducing a confirmation page enhances users' visibility into the system's status.
I redesigned the Profile page to provide users with a clearer insight into their students' progress. Once they chose a specific student's profile, they can easily identify the objectives they should focus on. Teachers can also adjust an objective's status by dragging and dropping it into a different column.
As Evidence Me already had an established style, I made sure the icons and new features I added blended in with it.
Below are a selection of hi-fidelity wireframes from the Create an Observation flow.
I tested the prototype with a variety of EYFS practitioners, including teachers, teaching assistants, and a phase leader. The tests were conducted in person and their screens were recorded so I could capture their interactions with the new features.
To measure success I established the following metrics in my research plan and used them against the test results:
Overall, participants were able to navigate the app smoothly and complete the tasks. Their impressions were positive, noting that the new features fit seamlessly with the current app, improved their record keeping, and made them excited.
Task 1: Complete an observation
Task 2: Access a learner's profile
Task 3: Update a learner's profile
Participants appreciated:
Whilst the feedback was positive, there were opportunities for additional iterations to enhance the usability of Evidence Me. To help determine which iterations should take priority within my timeframe, I used the impact vs. effort matrix below.
The coloured tags were highly appreciated by participants, who found that the use of colours significantly helped them to quickly identify different learning areas. A few participants suggested that aligning the colours with those present in Development Matters would further enhance this benefit.
To match the UI to the real world, the coloured tags were updated to match Development Matters' exisiting colours.
Upon reaching this screen, participants conveyed a sense of uncertainty. This was partly due to the updated flow, which different from what they were accustomed to, and partly because the instructions were not immediately visible to them.
To ensure the usability of the new flow, I increased the size and weight of the instructions to enhance visibility.
Nearly every participant would bypass the year group and class fields, skipping straight to the name field. They strongly indicated a preference for an autofill feature that would populate the fields automatically after entering the student's name.
To enhance the flow's efficiency, I updated the sequence of fields and implemented autofill for the class and year group sections.
Try creating an observation for yourself!
Expand the prototype to full screen using the arrows in the top righthand corner.
This project tested my ability to design within an established brand's UI and business goals. It was also helped me understand the importance of creating features that are practical and valuable for users.
Getting the chance to speak with the Headteacher also provided me with valuable practice in communicating with senior stakeholders.
© 2023 Rachel Brenner
