Scholastic
Reimagining the Online Presence of Scholastic Classroom Magazines
Client
Role
Visual/UI Design
Product Design
Art Direction
Product Design
Art Direction
Overview
Scholastic Classroom Magazines is a complete package of print magazines and engaging digital resources for teachers and students. There are 32 distinct brands covering a wide range of topics for grades Pre-K-12. They contain quality content written by Scholastic editors with differentiation and SEL integrated into the product. There is standards support and flexibility for various classroom needs.
The Problem
The Classroom Magazine websites were extremely outdated and needed a complete restructure and redesign. They were also being migrated into a completely new CMS, and needed design solutions that worked for this. The sites had no search capabilities, no HTML pages, and a lot of useful content was not being surfaced. The online brand was also disconnected from the print magazine. With the product being print-centric, there was a need to really amplify the digital experience. With increasing competition of digital ed-tech products, we needed to distinguish ourselves with modern features and rich content.
Research
Based on user research, we discovered some painpoints for teachers regarding planning and teaching.
- Slow wifi connection
- Lack of funding for the classroom
- Distracted or unengaged students
- Lack of time to plan and teach
- Information overload online
- Not tech savvy
- Communication difficulties with parents
- Paper limits for printing
Goals
We had specific goals in mind to address many of these user painpoints.
- Create robust HTML pages with new features and engaging multimedia
- Improve the user experience for use in the classroom
- Help teachers save time with content that is easier to access, and flexible to use
- Create a product more accessible for all
- Add new features like text-to-speech, bookmarking, digital quizzes and activities
The Solution
My role on this project was to lead the visual design. The magazines were grouped into categories that needed similar solutions. These 3 groups included Science, News and Art, Early Childhood, and ELA.
Workshops
The beginning of the project kicked off with workshops discovering the various pain points of teachers from each grade level. With this insight, the UX team created User Journeys and Personas. These journeys traveled through the typical day of a teacher, discovering pain-points along the way. With these pain points we listed opportunities on how we can ease these with the new sites.
Wireframes
Because we had such a small in-house team for a project of this scope, wireframes were completed by a digital agency whom we collaborated with along the way. After several rounds a final solution was reached for the first group of sites. We then collaborated with the agency design studio to create a generic template. With this template our in-house team applied the branding of each magazine. I led the design on the first magazine, ScienceWorld, which would then set the stage for the remaining magazines in this subset.
Iconography
For the Early Childhood sites I illustrated icons that were used in the explore bar. Some of the icons changed by season. These helped to make the site more age appropriate and visual for the littlest learners.
Note: These sites are behind a paywall, so only screenshots can be shown.
