User experience research and design is often misconstrued as “nice-to-haves” — not a non-negotiable like world-class product engineering. Especially if you’re an early-to-mid-stage EdTech company, you likely begin the product development process with a proof of concept and build it out as an evolving, real-world solution, with the engineering team at the helm.
And that’s not necessarily a misguided idea — especially at the beginning stages, when the pressure is on to build a valuable product. If you’re managing a fledgling budget or operating at the whim of impatient investors, an engineering-led approach can help you get something in the market — fast.
But after a certain point in your product’s growth, engineering-led product development offers diminishing returns. New features built on old UX decisions that may have been made in haste, piece-meal, without disciplined methods or validated user input can no longer solve your user issues.
At this point, in order to achieve sustainable growth, you need to assess your overall user experience and align it with your future product vision. It’s a critical inflection point to ensure you continue to deliver value to users — before they give up on your product.
5 Ways UX Research and Design Can Unlock Major EdTech Growth
UX is the key to moving your early-stage product to the next level so you can capitalize on growth. A smart UX program — paired with engineering — can support your product team by:
1. Allowing your EdTech’s engineering team to do what they do best: build standout products
Product engineers are often tasked with conducting UX research on their own. This can cut into the time they should be spending creating outstanding products. A UX team removes the burden of UX mastery from the engineering team’s scope. They’re there to inform product roadmapping decisions based on user feedback — all without stepping on engineers’ toes.
2. Creating alignment between EdTech product leadership and engineering
It’s typical for various stakeholders to have diverging opinions on what features or products will resonate with users. Equally challenging is aligning on what’s technically feasible to build. But it’s hard to argue when the user research is right in front of you.
An EdTech UX research and design agency like Openfield is an objective consultant to help product and leadership teams coalesce around shared product goals. They also provide essential support as engineering defines the scope and scale of development.
3. Clarifying your EdTech company’s vision
EdTech leaders need both a clear vision for the future of the product — and an actionable roadmap to achieve that vision. A UX team – especially one with deep EdTech expertise – can bring greater perspective to the product team and help them understand their product in the broader landscape of users and competitors. And while they’re exploring vision and strategy, your engineering team can focus on efficient and stable builds. Meanwhile, your UX team can translate the user’s voice into interface and flow experiences that bring your product vision to life.
4. Helping your team uncover unspoken user needs
UX research has a way of teasing out solutions to unspoken needs that users themselves aren’t able to articulate. It’s like the Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
There are formal, proven methodologies that can diagnose user priorities in a specific product experience. Partnering with seasoned UX experts equips your team with the right expertise to ask the right questions, at the right times, and in the right contexts. They ensure you uncover truly meaningful user insights that inform your roadmap.
5. Preventing you from overshooting (and overspending) on product development
It may surprise you to learn that product teams are more inclined to overestimate — not underestimate — their UX challenges.
But typically when we get down to the research, we find their users’ core problem is much smaller, with a manageable solution. And you don’t necessarily need to invest in extensive user interviews and testing to uncover these insights, either.
The news comes as a relief to product teams because they can move forward with confidence — and a bigger budget for new features and enhancements.
Everyone looks good with UX-informed EdTech
Skipping the critical UX testing and validation stage during product development leaves you vulnerable to creating EdTech products that don’t resonate with users. And when that happens, it’s often the engineering team that bears the blame.
Incorporating UX best practices, on the other hand, benefits your entire organization. With user insights driving the product roadmap, you’re better equipped to develop intuitive, essential EdTech solutions that delight customers. This collaborative approach ensures everybody — from product managers to developers — ends up looking good in the eyes of users.With over two decades of UX research and design in the EdTech domain, Openfield helps EdTech companies clarify their product vision, bolster internal teams, and deliver outstanding products users love. Curious how we can support your product ambitions? Reach out to us today.
