Parent-school platform
2024
FAMILY
Actionaly
Engagement vs Cognitive load - How do you improve metrics through better usability?
The PROBLEM
Actionaly was a school communication tool, simple to use. But parents were still missing deadlines and there was a drop in engagement across schools.
"It's an hour’s worth work every week making sure the calendar is up to date, consent forms are signed, what has to be paid is all done... I don't like it, but I am diligent."
— User interview, 12 parents
Once you’ve clicked ‘submit’, it’s not clear how to undo the action. There’s no confirmation or review.
There’s no acknowledgement on completing a task or motivation to complete another task
Without hierarchy, everything feels equally urgent — so nothing does. Parents needed the platform to make decisions for them about what to look at first, not just surface everything at once.
The decisionS
Separate To-Dos from News.
Rank tasks by deadline urgency.
Filter by child profile.
Add task acknowledgement and a progress loop — so completing one task leads naturally to the next.
Organize Content by Type
This helps reduce cognitive load and makes it easier for parents to focus on what's most relevant.
Organize Tasks by Deadline
Parents can easily see which tasks are most urgent, reducing missed actions and enhancing task management.
Organize Tasks by Person
This helps parents quickly find and manage tasks specific to each child or themselves, reducing navigation time.
Acknowledgement of completion
We added a “Thank You” page to acknowledge completed tasks, reinforcing the action taken and providing an option to review or edit, which helps ensure parents are aware of their progress and next steps.
Encourage with Progress
We designed engaging text like “Only 1 more task!” to encourage continued action.
Guide to Completion
We added both buttons to guide parents seamlessly from one task to the next while also offering a way to view all outstanding tasks.
Read Status Tracking
We introduced read receipts for news updates to show which announcements have been read by parents.
This feature provides visibility into communication engagement and helps parents keep track of important news they’ve interacted with.
Read by user
Read by other guardian
Read by other guardian and user
+10%
Weeks, end to end
18
School Districts
12
User Interviews
Let’s work together
Amrita designs products, flows and experiences that grow ambitious visions from 0 → 1. From concept to launch, she creates collaboratively with clear direction, transparency and impact.
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