Teaching Solved, a visionary EdTech startup, is setting new benchmarks in world language education with their innovative web-based product, Lesson Magic. Designed to streamline lesson planning for language teachers, the platform offers advanced tools, a comprehensive resource database, and a vibrant community of educators.
Lesson Magic currently supports Spanish and plans to expand to other languages soon. As the sole UX Designer, I was tasked with translating this visionary concept into a practical and user-centric product. Lesson Magic is currently under development.
Hope Anderson, the founder of Teaching Solved, envisioned Lesson Magic as a transformative tool for language teachers, emphasizing customizable lesson templates and an advanced resource search feature. However, translating this vision into a tangible product proved challenging. The development team struggled to fully realize this vision, creating a gap between the concept and its execution. My role was to bridge this gap, ensuring that the product was both innovative and intuitive, aligning with the needs of its users.
I adopted a Lean UX methodology to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that would serve as the foundation for Lesson Magic. The goal was to balance business objectives with user needs within tight timelines, delivering a product that would be both practical and forward-thinking. While Lesson Magic was still in the prototyping phase, user research conducted by Hope revealed a strong demand among early testers. A user from the alpha testing phase noted,"This is exactly what I needed for my three-hour conversation class—it provides the structure I require!" With this feedback in mind, we aimed to create a product that would cater to both individual educators and institutions, offering free and premium access options.
To ensure that teachers could easily navigate the platform, I focused on designing a user flow that was both intuitive and efficient. The user journey included essential elements like sign-in/sign-up, onboarding, and access to locked features, ensuring a smooth transition between free and premium memberships.
The wireframes were centered around the core features of Lesson Magic, such as customizable templates and the integrated resource search.
These wireframes served as the basis for iterative design and development, allowing for continuous refinement based on user feedback and testing.
The initial prototype was developed in alignment with the existing Teaching Solved branding, and my client was currently working with a graphic designer to establish branding guideline. User feedback from my client's initial launch highlighted areas for improvement. Specifically, testers called for more intuitive navigation and better integration of template accessibility. In response, I made adjustments to enhance template visibility by switching from a drop down to a vertical scroll view and made sure to streamline resource access by including a Google Drive integration for easier resource management.
Incorporating new branding guidelines provided by my client, the final prototype featured significant improvements in user interaction and accessibility. Key changes included more accessible template navigation and the removal of a complex upload/download feature, replaced with a more streamlined cloud integration. These adjustments were made to ensure that the platform was as user-friendly as possible, catering to the needs of busy educators. With the new branding, Teaching Solved can begin to establish itself and lean into brand recognition.
Despite the constraints that limited extensive usability testing, feedback from beta users testing the premium features was overwhelmingly positive. The development of Lesson Magicis ongoing, with a focus on continuous refinement and preparation for a full-scale launch. Both Hope Anderson and I are excited about the future of Teaching Solved and Lesson Magic, which is poised to make a lasting impact on language education. It was truly a pleasure to be able to work on this project.