Preschool Connect: letting parents see in without putting teachers or schools under strain

UX research and design for a mobile app that connects preschools, parents and teachers through controlled live video, a quick daily activity log and a simple report form.

Designer
Love Imah Oyibo
My role
UX researcher and designer
Team and timeline
One, 6 Months
Tools
Figma, Adobe XD
Three needs in tension Parents want transparency, directors want control, teachers want efficiency. The design has to satisfy all three. Parents: transparency Teachers: efficiency Directors: control
The design question: how might we balance parents’ need for transparency with schools’ need for control and teachers’ need for efficiency?

The problem

Parents of pre-nursery children wanted to know what their child’s day looked like and what the classroom was like. School directors worried about privacy and the added operational burden. Teachers needed a simple way to update parents without adding to their workload.

Each group’s ideal solution cut against another’s, so the work was less about adding features and more about finding trade-offs all three could accept.

Research

I interviewed parents, school directors and teachers, and observed classroom days at three schools. with about 10 people in each group, at Abuja.

Parents: live video and daily updates matter most Almost all parents wanted live-stream video, and some said they would switch schools to get it. One parent called the teacher several times a day and drove to school during her break to check on her daughter. Another wanted to know what his child was being taught and how the teacher treated them, even when he was out of town.
Directors: fear of scrutiny Directors were strongly against it. They worried parents would spot small problems, such as a dirty curtain or an unswept floor, and that it would damage the relationship with the school. Some schools had already stopped parents from entering classrooms.
Teachers: reporting is extra work Parents mostly ask the same things: did my child sleep, eat, play? Teachers saw writing this out for every child as additional work on top of their duties.

Who I designed for

I built personas for three parents (a stay-at-home mother, a contractor who travels, and a banker working across town), a headmaster with 12 years of experience, and a teacher with 3 years. Each had a distinct goal: checking the school environment, tracking what a child is taught, or avoiding daily trips to school at lunchtime.

Design decisions

Every major decision was a response to one of the tensions above.

DirectorsParents

Give the school control, and limit what parents can do with it

Parents can only enter the live stream with the school’s approval. Video cannot be downloaded, and each parent gets a maximum of 10 minutes a day. The limit keeps parents focused on their own child rather than on fault-finding, and it was the compromise that moved directors from opposing the idea to accepting it.

Directors

Make the feature pay for itself

I proposed that live viewing be a prepaid add-on, separate from school fees. This addressed the directors’ business goal of earning revenue while delivering a quality education.

TeachersDirectors

Put teachers in charge of when the camera is open

Teachers can switch the stream mode (outdoor activity, on break, sports day), accept incoming parent requests, and see how many people are watching. When the class is busy, parents see a “busy mode” screen that tells them how long to wait, which avoids a confusing error or a dead video.

Teachers

Turn a long report into four quick sections

The class activity template has four parts: naps, meals, bathroom and activities. A teacher picks a child from a dropdown and fills in the four sections. The parent sees the same entries as a simple timeline on the home screen, with a summary view for meals.

Parents

Keep sign-in and messaging simple

Parents sign in with their phone number and a passcode, which is easy for every parent to remember. If a parent has more than one child at the school, they land on a “select child” screen first. A short report form lets parents tell the school about their child’s health, and it is paired with a daily push notification, since parents might not remember to use it.

How it fits together

Parents move from a splash screen to login, then to their child’s activity page. From there they can watch their child live, or open the report page. Teachers log in to a dashboard with three areas: watch the class, write the activity report, and read incoming parent reports.

Final design

The final interface is bright and friendly for a preschool setting, with clear icons for each activity type so parents can scan the day in seconds.



Privacy and safety

Live video of young children is the most sensitive part of this product, so privacy shaped the design from the start: school approval for

The design limits what parents can do with the stream: school approval for every viewer, no downloads, a daily time cap and a visible list of who is watching. The project did not cover consent in depth, and that is the first thing I would address in the next iteration.

  • Written parental consent for each child before any filming starts, with a clear opt-out that doesn’t affect the child’s place at the school.
  • Fixed camera positions that exclude toilets and changing areas.
  • Live viewing only, with no recording by default, or a short fixed retention period if recording is needed.
  • A limited list of staff who can access the stream, with a log of who watched and when.
  • A plain-language privacy notice for parents and teachers, and teacher consent too, since staff are also filmed.

    • Outcomes

    Parents felt reassured by controlled live access. Directors accepted the solution once the control and monetization features were in place. Teachers were satisfied with the simplified reporting.

    Interviews with parents, school directors and teachers at private PreNursery School in Abuja showed that almost all parents wanted live-stream access, and some said they would switch schools to get it. Directors initially rejected the idea over reputational risk, but accepted it once they had approval control, a 10-minute daily limit, no downloads and a prepaid revenue model. Teachers agreed to complete the activity template once it was simplified and the extra work was linked to their pay.

    What I learned

    What worked: research-driven design and finding a compromise all three groups could accept.

    What I would change: test a clickable prototype with real parents and teachers, plan for many schools instead of one, and add analytics so schools can see how the features are used.

    Main lesson: good UX is often about balancing needs that pull in different directions while keeping the outcome centred on the people using it.

    Figma prototype   Full slide deck (PDF)