Should we even be doing this?

Working with experts

Initial Assessment Our product team faced a critical decision that pushed us beyond typical feature development. Using GoGuardian's core principle of "debate and decide," we carefully evaluated whether to explore this sensitive customer request. We assembled a focused discovery team—comprising a Product Manager, Head of Partnerships, and myself as Lead UX Designer—to assess the opportunity and make recommendations.

Expert Consultation With strong support from product leadership, we launched a comprehensive discovery process engaging multiple stakeholders: customers, industry experts, child psychology professionals, and school administrators. As a designer, I believe in addressing root causes rather than symptoms—a philosophy that proved essential for this project's sensitive nature.

Stakes and Scope This initiative transcended traditional product development. We weren't simply improving workflows; we were creating systems to help school counselors and administrators identify potential self-harm or harm to others. While Beacon focused specifically on self-harm detection, this project's broader scope demanded even greater precision and care. The consequences of failure were unacceptable, requiring us to approach every decision with exceptional thoughtfulness.

We immediately began leveraging expert networks across disciplines, ensuring our approach matched the gravity of our responsibility.

Partnerships

Who are we to tackle this subject matter?

Our extensive partnership network provided crucial expertise and diverse perspectives. We engaged with key stakeholders across the education ecosystem:

• National PTA

• 12 child psychology organizations

• School leadership (Superintendents, Principals, Assistant Principals)

• 8 mental health professionals (counselors, psychologists, therapists)

• Parent representatives

This multi-disciplinary collaboration, combined with insights from our Beacon development experience, equipped us with deep domain knowledge to form an informed hypothesis. These partnerships ensured our approach was grounded in real-world understanding of student needs.

Sphere of influence

Core Behavioral Indicators

Working with our partners, we identified four key spheres of influence that could signal potential threatening or violent student behavior. Our analysis focused on understanding these underlying factors to enable early intervention.

Research Synthesis and Next Steps

While our initial findings provided valuable insights, we recognized the need for deeper investigation of this sensitive domain. Upon presenting our learnings, leadership supported our recommendation for continued research alongside early prototype development for customer testing.

Will this be a stand-alone product?

Product Integration Strategy

With six existing products serving IT Administrators, Teachers, School Counselors, and Parents, we needed to determine optimal placement for the Threats + Violence functionality. Rather than creating a standalone seventh product, we strategically integrated it into Beacon, our school counselor platform.

This decision was driven by several factors:

• School counselors needed immediate access to concerning behavior alerts

• Beacon's existing user base was already familiar with the platform

• The functionality could serve as a central hub for threat-related information

This integration represented a significant milestone: the first feature to span the entire GoGuardian product suite, enabling seamless communication across all platforms to Beacon's alert system.

Data Science Framework

Drawing from our Beacon experience, we developed a robust Science and Analytics (S&A) model to detect threatening behaviors while minimizing false positives. The model's precision was crucial—we needed to balance accurate threat detection with counselor psychological safety and workflow manageability.

Through intensive research and customer collaboration, we identified five distinct categories for the S&A model to analyze and flag concerning behaviors. These categories provided the foundation for our machine learning framework:

Product Integration Workflows

While our S&A model handled detection and categorization, we developed integrated workflows across our product suite, with Beacon serving as the central hub. Here's how we enhanced Beacon's counselor experience:

Beacon Platform Enhancements

We evolved Beacon's existing counselor tools with four key additions:

• Streamlined onboarding for threat detection features

• Seamless integration of Threats + Violence categories into existing workflows

• Enhanced platform settings for threat management

• Customizable parent communication controls

Teacher Integration

We enhanced the Teacher platform, which enables classroom instruction and student activity monitoring, with two critical threat detection capabilities:

• Real-time student screen monitoring with improved alert triggers

• Secure channel for submitting concerns about student behavior discreetly

  
  

Admin Platform Integration

We augmented the Admin product—the central hub for device management and access control—with targeted threat monitoring features:

• Comprehensive student online activity review system

• Confidential channel for flagging concerning student behavior

  
  

Prototype

We created an interactive prototype demonstrating the full threat reporting workflow—from teacher observation to counselor review. This prototype underwent rigorous testing with 10 key stakeholders across our user groups (teachers, IT administrators, and school counselors).

After incorporating user feedback and refining the experience, we presented the optimized prototype to product leadership. The demonstration, which showcased a complete user journey from initial teacher observation through counselor review in Beacon, secured approval for full development.

View Prototype