Mathasium
Develop a Monitoring App to Strengthen Communication Between Parents and Tutors at Mathnasium
The Mathnasium Connect Parent Portal is a progress tracking app built to give parents a clear, in-depth view of their child's learning journey within the Mathnasium program. It allows parents to monitor daily activities, track milestones, and stay informed about their child's academic growth, making it easier to support learning at home and stay connected with instructors.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
DURATION
3 months
RESPONSIBILITIES
User Research
End to End User Experience Design
User Testing and Feedback Integration
UX Strategy & Leadership
Overview
Get to know the client: Mathnasium
Mathnasium is an American education brand and supplemental math learning franchise consisting of over 1,000 learning centers around the world, that provides instruction to students in pre-kindergarten through high school.
Mathnasium’s brand pillar
Before identifying any business challenges, we first set out to understand Mathnasium’s brand identity.
❌
Cultivating self-mastery
Encourages students to learn at their own pace, building independence, strengthening problem-solving skills, and nurturing a lifelong love of learning.
✅
Supportive & clear communication
Recognizes the vital role of encouragement in education. Creates a positive, inclusive environment where every voice in a child's learning journey is heard and valued.
✅
Consistency in learning
Strives to provide learning experiences that are clear, accessible, and enjoyable, helping learners gain confidence and knowledge through steady, supportive progress.
Problem Space
Communication gap
While Mathnasium provides worksheets and progress reports, many parents still struggle to stay actively involved in their child’s academic progress and access timely support. The process is fragmented, requiring parents to juggle multiple tools and channels to stay informed. This lack of integration creates unnecessary friction and can make it difficult for parents to track progress, ask for help, or find relevant resources.
Currently, the system relies on:
Paper logs to track daily assignments
Phone calls or emails to book tutoring sessions
Separate visits to the Kumon website to access learning resources
The guardian portal’s homepage, parents can see their student’s timetable, reports, communication
The guardian portal’s assessment, parents can see the student’s assessments overall
The guardian portal’s report, parents can see the student’s singular report overall
This fragmented experience takes up valuable time and makes it harder for parents to actively support their child's learning. It is a common challenge across the industry, and Mathnasium has the opportunity to solve it by offering a unified tool that streamlines progress tracking and communication. Doing so would strengthen Mathnasium’s position as a go-to resource for parents committed to their child’s academic success.
Synthesis
SWOT Analysis
To understand if this was actually an issue that presented any opportunities, our team conducted primary and secondary research, finding out these two key issues to help frame our direction:
56% of dropouts were directly linked to parents perceptions of goals or communication issues.
Through conducting a SWOT analysis, we found that Ma primary competitors (Sylvan, Khan Academy) have a significant weakness in their lack of comprehensive progress tracking features for parents.
How might we design a centralized progress platform within Mathnasium Guardian Portal that empowers parents of high school students to stay engaged, improve retention, and support long-term academic growth?
To align with Mathnasium’s brand promise and educational philosophy, we grounded our design decisions in the following questions:
How can Mathnasium deliver effective, structured learning plans while giving parents the flexibility to adapt to their child’s individual needs?
How might we equip parents with clear, comprehensive insights to help them make confident decisions about their child’s academic progress?
How can a digital platform foster ongoing collaboration and provide seamless access to progress updates and support resources?
User Interview
Reality check
We interviewed a Mathnasium instructor to understand the constraints and opportunities within the education sector. This interview helped us define our brand voice and communication strategies.
Face-to-face communication still matters.
Parents and instructors strongly value in-person or immediate communication, which digital tools alone cannot fully replace or replicate.
Clarifying the value of tracking
When parents understand both the strengths and limitations of progress tracking, they feel more equipped to support their child and respond effectively to milestones or concerns.
Trust built through interaction
Parents emphasized the importance of real, personal connections. An app should support but not replace, these key conversations between families and instructors.
Targeted Audience
Persona
The Involved Parent
Maria is a hands-on parent who plays an active role in her child’s education. She values having a clear overview of academic progress and the ability to manage tutoring sessions and resources with ease.
Jobs-to-be-Done
When I review my child’s academic performance, I want a simple way to track their progress and manage tutoring, so I can provide the support they need to succeed.
The Busy Parent
Alex balances work, family, and parenting responsibilities. For him, staying updated on his child’s education and scheduling tutoring sessions quickly and easily is essential.
Jobs-to-be-Done
When I manage my child’s learning, I want fast access to updates and simple appointment tools, so I can stay informed and support their education without added stress.
Key Takeaway
Parents often expect immediate academic improvement, which makes it challenging for them to recognize the value of incremental progress through repetitive study. This disconnect can lead to uncertainty about the learning process. Strengthening collaboration between parents and tutors is crucial to addressing this gap, ensuring that expectations are managed and appropriate workloads are established to support effective and sustainable student learning.
Value Proposition
Business Goals
Encourage ongoing learning through small wins
Our product supports Mathnasium’s belief in steady growth by focusing on daily practice and progress over time. It’s all about building good habits that lead to long-term success.
Bring parents and tutors closer together
We want to make it easier for parents and tutors to stay connected and work as a team. By encouraging regular communication, we can create a more supportive environment for every student.
Client Goals
Help parents stay involved and informed
By giving parents clear updates on their child’s progress, we make it easier for them to stay engaged. It’s about keeping things transparent and helping families feel more confident in the learning journey.
Final Design
Learning Insight
The interface gives parents real-time updates on their child's daily learning activities and progress within the Mathnasium program, offering a clear view of how their child is doing. This level of transparency helps parents stay actively engaged and better support their child’s education at home. It also builds trust in the program by keeping parents consistently informed and involved in their child’s academic journey.
Appointment booking
The booking interface makes it easy for parents to schedule meetings with Mathnasium tutors. This simple tool improves communication between parents and tutors, fostering a collaborative environment that prioritizes the child's educational progress.
Establish a consistent progress
Mathnasium’s program method promotes consistency, which helps students develop strong study habits and better time management skills. By building a daily routine with dedicated study periods, students learn to approach their work with structure and discipline.
Reflection
Throughout this project, I learned how essential clear design, open team communication, and intentional decision-making are to the process. Our internal critiques kept us aligned and fostered a sense of inclusion across the team. Frequent check-ins helped us shift from our own assumptions to truly understanding what the client needed, which made our solutions more effective and relevant.