PeerPal
PeerPal is a K-12 admissions software connecting prospective students with schools.
My Role
User Research, Product Design, QA
Team
Time Frame
February 2021 - October 2021
Description
A full service management platform where admissions can track ambassador campaigns, prospective student analytics, and ambassador performance overtime.
Context
At PeerPal, I cross-collaborated with product management, engineering, and marketing to develop PeerPal's back office.
About
Through user research we discovered an industry relying on outdated tools. Each admissions period, prospective student information was tracked via spreadsheets. Ambassador communication managed via email, and campaign statistics scattered across various mediums. Administrators expressed frustration with poor communication, missed opportunities, and time inefficiency.
We learned about the day to day tasks of administrators, what their relationship with ambassadors looked like, and their key objectives for running campaigns. What we sought to build was a back office for administrators across the education sector that would enable them to create marketing campaigns, track leads, conversions, while bridging the communication gap between admins, school ambassadors, and students.
Core-Requirements
The lives of office administrators is a juggling act. Overworked and left with very little time, PeerPal's back office interface would need to be easily navigable, with a robust set of actionable data.
Core-Requirements Included:
1. Campaigns. As an admin, I must be able to create new campaigns and view historic campaign data including website visits, conversations, sign ups, and interactions.
2. Messaging. As an admin, I must communicate with ambassadors (either individually or in bulk).
3. Management. As an admin, I must easily customize the PeerPal widget
Focusing on creating a robust "settings tab" would be fundamental for providing the advantage admins need to successfully customize their campaigns.
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Security Constraints
PeerPal was originally intended as a way to create and manage outreach campaigns, prioritizing campaign data and management. What we found was the necessity to not only track campaign data but user data as well given the unique architecture from school to school.
Ambassador can be parents, alumni, students, faculty, or other volunteers. Building a permission based framework would be important not only from a managerial perspective but from a security as well.
Solutions
Overtime, defining value became more and more broad. It forced us to rethink how we might maximize the UX for all users while ensuring a timely delivery of a high-quality product. We came up with a solution that could be applied to all ambassadors, regardless of school.
Revised Requirements:
1. Quick Actions. As an admin, I need to hide and unhide profiles with a click of a toggle
2. Limitations. As an admin, I need to require an entire profile to be completed before publishing
3. Approvals. As an admin, I need to approve edits to profiles
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Moving Admissions Forward
We built PeerPal to prioritize ambassador management while tracking campaign statistics. Through the use of customizable profiles, in-app messaging, real-time data, PeerPal can empower efficient decision-making and engagement strategies.
By affording users with versatile tools and insights, we helped schools and universities meet their conversion goals while maintaining a safe environment for their students.
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