Kernels
Servicing higher education
University of Texas at Austin Product Management course project
Vision
Provide the most efficient course selection tool for university students to select the best courses for them
Pain Point?
What is the problem? Who are we solving the problem for?
Students struggle to find comprehensive information about courses leading to uninformed decisions.
Target Market
Ed-Tech is Growing
Global Ed-Tech and Smart Classroom market size was an estimated $83.6 billion USD in 2020 and is expected to reach $99.5 billion USD in 2021 at an compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.3%.
This industry is expected to reach $241.6 billion USD by 2026.
$30bn
$10bn
TAM
SAM
Reviews are Valuable
How powerful are reviews as a path to reaching customers? The answer is very.
91% of 18-34 year old’s trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and 93% of customers say that online reviews influenced their decisions.
Competitive analysis
Instructure, Inc. is a leading learning management system known as Canvas or Canvas LMS. Instructure is an existing major competitor which was considered when building the strategy
RateMyProfessors and Niche are current leading course review websites which offer all course information, professor reviews, syllabus and projects details. These two products were strongly considered when understanding building user needs
Understanding our target audience
Students
Universities
Description
Students who are either looking to pursue education in universities or are current students in universities and want to look over how their courses are, how their lecturers are and want to connect with their alumni
Universities want to have students achieve great heights during their careers and want to help them build the best possible plan, based on student's interests.
Demographics
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Students aged 18-30 (including both undergraduate and graduate level students)
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Some college education
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Income under $50,000
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University employees aged 24-50
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Located within the US
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College educated
Psychographics
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Students who believe they have to have a good teacher for the course
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Students who would like to know opinions from other students if the course is worth taking
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Students who are interested in a particular field or specialization
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Universities who have specialization topics in their course and want to showcase their extensive courses provided to students
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Universities who want to showcase they provide the best education
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Universities who want to showcase that their alumni are hired by the top companies and are now CEOs/CTOs of the world
Behavioral Characteristics
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Students tend to ask senior students for course recommendation
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Students regularly like to check with alumni about their course work and assignments
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Students like check courses that would relate to their research and career opportunities
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Universities who would like to get course feedback from students and improve teaching qualities
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Universities who would like to help students get better career developments
Technology Adoption Lifecycle
Early majorities: University students
Innovators: Since universities are the ones purchasing the software's for students and faculties.
User Research
We conducted user interviews with current and potential students who wanted to join universities. From the interviews, we were able to derive the following findings:
Inadequate course information
“Not always a lot of information in grad school course descriptions… sometimes [there’s] only one sentence.”
Complicated research process
“I have a bunch of tabs open in Chrome and it can be confusing to wade through all of the different information sources to make a decision.”
Time consuming research process
"Interviewees mentioned that the course selection research process was time consuming, frequently leading to frustration."
Student insight is seen as valuable
"Interviewees mentioned that they didn’t always have insight from other students, but when this information was available, it was very valuable."
Solution
Inadequate course
information
Time-consuming +
complicated research process
Student insight
seen as valuable
Integrated + robust course information
One-stop course
research platform
Course reviews + connection with students
Feature Prioritization
Roadmap
