Early Childhood Development Platform
Redesigning a Core Platform to Support ECD Centre Owners
Project Scope
Concept validation and UX research for the redesign of a pre-school management app, focused on usability, information architecture, and brand transition for ECD centre owners.
Outcome
Clear validation insights and design recommendations that improved navigation clarity, task completion, and onboarding, providing a user-centred foundation for the new OYSTAR platform.
Role
Lead UX Researcher
The Challenge
Across early childhood development centres, administrative work is constant and unforgiving. Centre owners rely on digital tools to manage attendance, fees, communication, and compliance, often with little margin for error. The challenge was not introducing technology into ECD operations but redesigning an existing system that many centres depend on daily without adding friction or cognitive burden.
As the platform underwent a rebrand and structural redesign, the risk was disruption: existing users losing confidence, struggling to complete essential tasks, or disengaging entirely. Centre owners needed clarity, continuity, and simplicity without sacrificing functionality or future scalability.
How do you redesign a core operational system for ECD centres in a way that improves usability and structure while preserving trust and ensuring uninterrupted daily use?
The Approach
The work focused on grounding the redesign in the realities of ECD centre operations, balancing usability, continuity, and future scalability.
User & Contextual Insight
Conducted qualitative research with ECD centre owners and administrators to understand daily workflows, pain points, and decision pressures, particularly around attendance, fees, communication, and reporting.
Experience Architecture & Flow Design
Mapped critical user journeys and restructured navigation and information architecture to reduce cognitive load and support fast, repeatable task completion.
Concept Validation & Usability Testing
Tested early concepts and redesigned flows with existing users to validate clarity, comprehension, and ease of use before finalising design recommendations.
Stakeholder Alignment
Worked closely with internal stakeholders to align research insights, product goals, and rebranding requirements, ensuring continuity for existing users during transition.
Design Guidance & Handover
Delivered clear UX recommendations and design principles to guide the redesigned platform, providing a user-centred foundation for ongoing development and scale.
The Solution
The outcome was a more intuitive platform that supports essential functions such as attendance, fee management, and communication, while providing a stable foundation for onboarding new users and scaling the system under the OYSTAR brand.
A simplified information architecture that prioritises core daily tasks and reduces cognitive load for ECD centre owners.
Streamlined user flows for attendance, fee tracking, and communication, designed for fast and repeatable use.
A clearer navigation system and interface hierarchy to support users with varying levels of digital literacy.
Design patterns that preserve familiarity while supporting a smooth transition to the new OYSTAR brand.
A scalable UX foundation that supports future feature expansion without compromising usability or trust.
The Evidence
Managing Change
Transitioning to the new OYSTAR ecosystem posed a formidable challenge. The introduction of a new brand name, navigation schema, interaction models, and information architecture in one fell swoop had the potential to disorient and alienate the existing user base. Ensuring that users could adapt to the new platform without significant friction was paramount. The absence of a central dashboard and the simplification of crucial actions added layers of complexity to the transition. The challenge was to implement these changes without compromising user experience or satisfaction.
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UI Preferences - Blind Test
I designed this activity aimed to gauge the brand's visual appeal without bias. Participants provided feedback on various designs to assess if they resonated with the target audience and matched their preferences. During the testing process, we presented users with two distinct UI themes (Playful, Retro, and Vibrant Theme and the Professional, Minimalist, and Corporate Theme) to evaluate their responses and preferences. We asked users to rank the different apps based on their preferences for colors and images that they would like to see in an app.
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Findability Testing
This exercise tested whether ECD centre owners could quickly locate and complete core daily tasks within the redesigned interface. By placing users in realistic scenarios such as marking attendance at the start of the school day, the testing surfaced points of hesitation, misinterpretation, and friction. The results informed refinements to navigation labels, menu structure, and task grouping, ensuring that essential actions remained immediately discoverable. This helped validate that the redesigned experience improved clarity without requiring users to relearn how the system works.
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Usability Testing
This testing evaluated how easily ECD centre owners could complete multi-step tasks within the redesigned platform, such as conducting learner assessments and sharing reports with parents or guardians. Participants were guided through realistic scenarios to observe task flow, comprehension, and points of friction. The findings highlighted where interface structure, terminology, or feedback needed refinement to support confident task completion. This ensured that complex processes like assessments remained intuitive, efficient, and aligned with real classroom workflows.
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The Impact
ECD Centres Represented
+20
Core Tasks Validated
8
Usability Issues Identified
+15
Design Decisions Informed
3
Personal Reflection
Designing for Continuity and Trust
This project reinforced how disruptive change can be when digital tools are embedded in daily, high-pressure work. ECD centre owners rely on this platform to run their schools, leaving little tolerance for confusion or relearning. The redesign made it clear that improvement is not always about adding features, but about preserving familiarity while reducing friction.
Working through research and usability testing deepened my appreciation for trust as a design constraint. The goal was not to impress with novelty, but to support users through change with clarity and care. It reaffirmed my belief that good design, particularly in essential services, must prioritise continuity, confidence, and respect for users’ lived realities.
