Should we even be doing this?

Working with experts

As a product team, we had extensive internal conversations and debates, ultimately using one of our core GoGuardian principles, “debate and decide,” to determine whether to explore this customer request. We decided to enter a product discovery phase to assess the space and recommend whether the company should pursue this project. The team tasked with this project included a Product Manager, the Head of Partnerships, and me, the Lead UX Designer.

Our approach involved learning from experts, with significant support from the product leadership team. We engaged with customers, industry experts, child psychology groups, and school administrators. As a designer, especially with such sensitive subject matter, it is crucial to delve deep into finding the root cause of a problem, rather than just addressing its symptoms. This project put all those beliefs to the test.

We couldn’t approach this project like any other product or feature release. This wasn’t a typical workflow improvement project; we were working on identifying and alerting school counselors and administrators about students who could potentially harm themselves or others. While Beacon was focused on detecting and alerting if a student could potentially hurt themselves, this project had a broader scope. The stakes were incredibly high, and handling this process with grace, humanity, and expediency was paramount. The consequences of failure were unfathomable.

We immediately began leveraging our networks to learn more from experts, ensuring that we approached this project with the utmost care and responsibility.

Partnerships

Who are we to tackle this subject matter?

We had a thriving partnerships team that connected us with various student advocacy groups. We had the great pleasure of partnering with the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association), 12 child psychology groups, school administrators (Superintendents, Principals, and Assistant Principals), as well as 8 school counselors, psychologists, therapists, and parents. This collaboration provided us with a diverse array of perspectives centered around student lives. We felt better informed and equipped with industry knowledge to craft a working hypothesis. Additionally, we leveraged previous learnings, research, and guidance from school counselors who had assisted us while building Beacon.

Sphere of influence

What's driving this project

In collaboration with our partners, the GoGuardian team identified four core areas that could underlie behaviors leading students toward threatening and violent actions.

We gathered our learnings and presented what we understood what was needed in this space. Although we had learned a lot, we needed more time to continue learning and researching. The leadership team understood that this was a sensitive subject matter and more investigation was needed. We were given the green light to continue exploring while also start working on a product prototype to test with customers.

Will this be a stand-alone product?

Where in the product ecosystem does this live in?

At the time, GoGuardian had a suite of six products, primarily focused on IT Administrators, Teachers, School Counselors, and, most recently, Parents (a product for student guardians). The leadership team tasked us with determining whether the Threats + Violence project should be pitched as its own fully-fledged product or integrated into one of the existing products.

Instead of adding a seventh product to the suite, we decided to house Threats + Violence within Beacon. Why? It made the most sense for school counselors to be informed of concerning student behavior as soon as possible. Since Beacon was the product that school counselors were most familiar with, it would provide a simpler workflow for them to adapt to. The intent was to have all other products communicate with Beacon regarding Threats + Violence. This integration marked the first time a single feature would permeate the entirety of the GoGuardian suite.

5 Categories

Setting up the data science model

We leveraged our learnings from the Beacon product to ensure the new feature would be effective. We needed to create a Science and Analytics (S&A) model to accurately scan and alert for threatening and violent behavior without generating a flood of false positives. Given the intense and potentially dangerous outcomes, it was crucial that the S&A model did not overwhelm school counselors. It was important that school counselors had a sense of psychological safety and trust in our product. We didn’t want them to feel overwhelmed.

Equipped with our research and working closely with customers, our team worked tirelessly to identify five specific categories where the S&A model could learn and begin to identify threatening and violent behaviors. Here are the five categories:

Workflows

As the S&A model worked on identifying, categorizing, and creating relevant alerts, we began developing workflows for each product that would integrate with Beacon. Here are the pivotal workflows within each product:

Beacon workflow

The Beacon product is used by school counselors to manage student behavior.

• Onboarding screen

• Threats + Violence categories incorporated into the Beacon workflow

• Updated Beacon settings

• Parent Notification customization

  
  

Teacher workflow

The Teacher product is used by school teachers to educate students while proctoring student online activity.

• Observe student screens

• Discretely submit a student's concerning behavior

  
  

Admin workflow

The Admin product is used by IT Administrators to manage all student device connectivity and GoGuardian product access for students, teachers, school counselors, and other school staff.

• Ability to review student online activity

• Discretely submit a student's concerning behavior

  
  

Prototype

The clickable prototype was used to conduct 10 user testing sessions with teachers, IT Admins, and school counselors. After fine-tuning the product based on feedback, we presented the prototype to GoGuardian’s product leadership team. The team gave the green light to build the Threats + Violence project.

The prototype below showcases a teacher observing concerning behavior and submitting it for review. A school counselor then reviews the behavior within Beacon.

View Prototype