For a digital product or website to be valuable, it must provide helpful functionality (useful) and have an intuitive interface (usable). This is true for any vertical, but even more so for EdTech – our future depends upon it. In order to improve outcomes, EdTech must facilitate and enhance learning. Interfaces with usability issues create frustration and divert attention away from valuable learning time.

Current State

On average, teachers and K-12 students were exposed to ~45 EdTech products in 2024. The sheer number of interfaces that students and teachers need to engage with and learn is challenging. Now consider the fact that many of these products are hard to use. This is where usability is critical. When an interface is intuitive, it disappears and facilitates the functionality without friction.

ISTE+ASCD and other industry non-profits are starting to acknowledge and promote usability as a marker of product quality. While the importance of product usability is starting to gain the attention of product owners, the overall state of EdTech UX is still challenged.

Foxgroove provides consultation on improving the integration of user experience design into the product development lifecycle. Contact us to learn more.

How EdTech can Embrace UX

It is clear that everyone shares the goal of creating usable products that facilitate teaching and improve student learning outcomes. The unfortunate reality is that many EdTech products have significant and often systemic usability issues that minimize their effectiveness. Teachers and students are ‘dealing’ with the interface instead of focusing on learning.

EdTech has a usability problem that we want to solve. We spoke to 100’s of EdTech companies and industry leaders to uncover the underlying reasons product usability is lacking. While every situation is different, a number of key themes emerged:

  1. Staffing – When we asked product owners who handles product UX, common responses were the dev team, marketing, and even the CEO! While these resources are critical in their own right, they often lack the deep understanding of UX best practices. Having a defined product strategy and strong design foundation is critical to the success of any project. For this reason, we recommend bringing on a top-tier resource or design agency as early as possible. A seasoned professional can create a UX strategy and design system that ensures innovation, consistency, and extensibility. Once the heavy lifting is done, bringing on a mid-tier UX designer for production and new features is a good option.
  2. Process & Culture – We found that many companies have a tech-focused organization and culture. In many cases, UX is undervalued or included as an afterthought. The most success companies give UX a very strong seat at the table and encourage a company-wide appreciation of usability. Companies seeking to add user experience design into their product lifecycle should consider changes to roles, responsibilities, budget, and task durations. User experience designers can provide value by conducting user research, contributing to project strategy, defining requirements, designing usable interfaces, and ensuring the developed experience matches the design. Establishing change management and cultural buy-in is critical to maximizing effectiveness.
  3. Budgeting – UX is often seen as a ‘hat’ that another resource can handle. This saves budget, but at the expense of happy users and ultimately product revenue. Allocating appropriate resources to improving usability is key to having a world-class product. Depending on project scope and complexity, 25% to 30% of the overall budget should be allocated to UX design. Great user experiences help to acquire new users, retain current users, and encourage product advocacy. Investing in UX has a significant return on investment.