Are you in the final phases of your education app development and want to make sure you’ve got a robust product that’s ready for the market? Or, are you in the development period and want to ensure your idea has the best chances for success? Doing your homework is critical not only for student outcomes, but for education app developer outcomes as well! The following are five requirements for new education apps – including practices for before and after you launch your platform.
- Pilot testing – The old adage – try-before-you-buy – rings true especially for large scale purchases. When schools are looking to solve a problem and have a tight budget, they want to know their app choice is going to return on their investment. Give schools a chance to have a trial run in as large a scale as possible, to give them a taste of how much they will love your solution. A great resource is Digital Promise, with their EdTech Pilot Framework to use to ensure your pilot program is a success.
- Know the schools sales cycle – What time of the year is best to reach and engage educators? When are teachers more likely to come across your company’s website? What about when to approach district decision makers about a trial run? Knowing the right time to reach out to your target audience is critical for the placement of your product. Schools do not make purchasing decisions in only one season of the year, but year-round. Make sure you understand the school sales cycle, and when to add your product into the rotation.
- Get teacher feedback – Feedback directly from the educators who use your product or service should be a regular part of your user research process, not just before you sell your product, but throughout your relationship with a classroom, school, or district. Here’s a helpful resource on finding teachers for feedback on your products or services. Furthermore, take a look at this post about the 3 questions teachers will ask about your Ed Tech product.
- Make user data accessible – A common complaint educators have with the Edtech products they use in their classroom is that it can be challenging and/or complicated to simply view, extract, and collect data about their student’s progress. Many app developers continue to have a proprietary mindset, which is not keeping teachers’ goals in mind – which is integration, and ease of use between the various platforms they use on a daily basis. Some modern data standards like Ed-Fi have emerged, that aim to make data integration seamless between platforms – consider using these standards in your app development.
- Make it user friendly – Above all, try to make your apps user friendly. This means keeping extraneous details or visuals to a minimum, keeping only critical information on the interface to reduce clutter. Keep your end user’s goals/habits/needs in mind. We’ve all had experiences with overly designed platforms that are confusing, and don’t make it clear how to achieve whatever goals the app aims to be able to solve. Keep it simple!
Looking for more insights on app development in the education industry? Connecting with the right target audience is key – and MDR can help. From research reports, to custom market research, to educator lists, we’ve got a robust set of tools for successfully reaching and engaging educators. Reach out to us with any questions at mdrinfo@dnb.com.
