Jackrabbit Technologies
Online Registration
A flagship feature of the childcare management platform, the online registration module allows center admins to create customizable registration setups for their different programs and classes
A flagship feature of the childcare management platform, the online registration module allows center admins to create customizable registration setups for their different programs and classes
Based on multiple user interviews, competitor analysis, and client requests, it was clear that centers needed software to help them manage their registrations. Our research showed that their needs vary significantly from center to center, and our software didn’t offer a comparable solution
Center administrators and directors need to collect family and child information, emergency contacts, and even payments, usually a manual and tedious process that requires multiple emails or phone calls.
Through several user interviews with directors and center owners, we learned about the complexity and diverse requirements that different centers have.
Some centers, specifically unlicensed ones. only request basic family information. Licensed centers, on the other hand, must collect more detailed data about children, including their health, education, allergies, and family members.
I developed user flows than could give us the different touch points a parent has to interact with the center during a registration and re-enrollment. This allowed the team to get a holistic view of the journey and deliver a more comprehensive solution.
Having an understanding of how the software works allowed me to ideate and design flows that better align with the software architecture. This was especially helpful during refinement with the development team providing different options while keeping the user in mind.
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Diverse flows were used during refinement meetings to define the scope of the project and the challenges in the development.
Centers’ needs vary: from basic information to more elaborate forms and questionnaires.
We needed to provide a certain level of modularity and flexibility to meet the varying requirements of different centers.
Some centers receive hundreds of applications, making it a challenge to place children in the appropriate class or program.
The system needs to make it easy to organize and prioritize incoming registrations for approval or rejection.
Parents are often required to fill out PDF forms, which causes delays and adds extra steps when trying to secure a spot in a childcare center.
Offering a web-based and mobile-friendly solution can help parents complete forms and upload documents directly from their smartphones.
The platform architecture is based on modals and multi-step modals; therefore, we had to keep the experience within a “wizard”-style assistant.
The user needed to select certain settings for the registration period, timeframe, and whether to create a public or private shareable link. The first step included general settings that affect the entire registration.
The second step was the “builder,” where users could use building blocks to add information requests grouped by category. For example, if they needed to collect allergy information, they could add the "Allergy" block to their online form.
Finally, we wanted the user to review the registration flow before making it public. We included a “Preview” button that displays the result in a separate tab.During testing, we encountered mostly positive feedback. We also received requests to add more building blocks for elements we hadn’t originally considered, such as policies or document requests.
For high-fidelity mockups, We incorporated color-coded icons to help easily identify the steps and add a less strict look and feel. Previously, it was uncommon to include graphics inside a modal. Instead of just checkboxes, we created a “building block” menu. The selectable blocks were a new set of UI components not included in our design system.
Each building block included a series of icons that allowed the user to edit, view, or delete. After receiving feedback from the developer team, we combined the edit and view options to reduce scope.The color-coded blocks and options are used consistently wherever that specific information appears. This helps users quickly reference groups of information in complex workflows.As part of this project, I also designed the smaller setting modals for each of the “building blocks,” such as adding a policy, requesting information, emergency contacts, tuition fees, request files, etc.
Once the set up was complete, the center could publish the registration and share the link to access it. The families will be able to go through the series of selected steps via web if they are new families or via the mobile app if they are returning ones.
Online registration was well received by our users, who found it easy to use. During the first iteration, the team decided to launch with just a basic set of building blocks. However, we quickly received feedback from users about the lack of options or that the existing ones were too basic.
This created a chain reaction because some features were developed exclusively to serve the online registration project, making it difficult to scale on the backend.
The ability to add a fee took the longest to develop, not due to design complexity, as it was included from the beginning of the project, but because of the difficulty in connecting it with the platform’s financial processes.In the end, scalability and a holistic approach helped us develop a solution that can adapt to future updates, user feedback, and the development team’s capacity.
