KidsBell

A Communication Platform for Korean kindergarten Teachers and Multicultural Families.

Individual Project

Role: Product designer(User research, prototyping, UI design, User Test)

DURATION

Oct 2024

TOOLS

Figma

Overview

Goal

To simplify daily communication between teachers and parents, while reducing stress and supporting diverse family needs.

Background

Korean kindergarten teachers often rely on personal apps, phone calls, or paper logs to communicate with parents, frequently outside of work hours. With the growth of multicultural families, language barriers make communication even more difficult.

Problem

Current communication is fragmented and invasive. Teachers struggle to protect their time and privacy, while parents lack clear and accessible ways to understand their child’s daily experience.

Design Direction

Build a centralized platform that:

  • Provides in-app messaging with clear time boundaries to protect teachers’ work–life balance

  • Offers automatic message translation to support multicultural families

  • Ensures privacy, simplicity, and emotional clarity in daily communication

Problem & User

Research Goal:

To identify key communication pain points and emotional needs in daily teacher–parent interaction, focusing on boundaries, workload, and children’s daily experience

To better understand user needs, I conducted surveys and interviews:

  • 29 kindergarten teachers + 23 parents (including multicultural family members)

The research focused on:

  • Teachers’ stress from constant parent messages and blurred boundaries

  • Language barriers that make daily updates hard for multicultural families

  • Parents’ and teachers’ acceptance of in-app chat as a safer, simpler tool

This research highlighted both stress (teachers’ boundaries) and needs (parents’ wish to see their child’s emotions).
It informed the design of features like Daily Emotion Cards and Manner Time, supporting balanced and meaningful communication.

Insights

Research showed the need for tools that protect boundaries, visualize children’s daily emotions, and support accessible communication for diverse families.

I identified two key user types—kindergarten teachers and multicultural parents—who shared similar frustrations around communication.

Key User insights

  • Teachers feel stressed by late-night parent messages and juggling multiple tools.

  • Parents want to follow their child’s emotions, not just activity details.

  • Both groups expect simple, respectful communication that fits their daily life.

Problem Statement

  • Teachers in Korea lose time and energy due to fragmented communication and after-hours contact.

  • Multicultural families struggle with language barriers that make updates harder to follow.

  • There is a need for a tool that not only increases efficiency but also builds trust and supports emotional clarity between teachers and parents.

Goals & Principles

"How might we design a communication experience that protects teachers’ time and helps parents connect with their child’s day?"

Research showed that focusing only on efficiency (blocking messages, reducing admin work) was not enough.

  • For teachers, I designed Manner Time: a feature that respects their rest while keeping parents informed with queued messages and friendly reminders.

  • For parents, I designed Daily Emotion Cards: a clear, visual summary that shows the child’s mood and encourages meaningful conversations at home.

This way, the solution goes beyond simple management tools and creates a more human, balanced communication experience.

Flows & Structure

To address key pain points in communication, I designed separate flows for two main users: teachers and parents.
The goal was to reduce stress, protect time boundaries, and make updates clear and accessible across languages.

Teacher’s Flow:

Teachers create and send daily reports, check replies, and follow up only during work hours.
This flow consolidates scattered tools and prevents late-night messages on personal phones.

(Click on each flowchart to zoom in.)

Parent's Flow:

Parents receive translated updates, reply in their own language, and request clarification without needing direct calls or Korean fluency.
This flow keeps parents included while reducing overload for teachers.

Why this structure?

The flows reflect real daily dynamics between teachers and parents—time pressure, emotional sensitivity, and language gaps.

By separating flows by user role, I simplified tasks, respected teacher boundaries, and made communication more accessible for multicultural families.

Prototyping

I created low-fidelity wireframes to explore task flows and layout structure, then translated them into high-fidelity screens focused on clarity, accessibility, and workflow efficiency.

user testing

To evaluate usability and clarity of key features such as message scheduling, multilingual support, and reply flow, I ran a low-fidelity prototype test with teachers and parents.

Hi-fidelity prototype

These screens show how KidsBell simplifies communication between teachers and parents while protecting personal boundaries.

The design highlights real-time updates, respectful notifications, and multilingual support for diverse families.

These changes were driven by user pain points and tested through design critiques, ensuring that each screen supports clarity, privacy, and time efficiency.

Interaction Details

All interactions in KidsBell were designed to promote clarity, reduce stress, and build trust—especially in multilingual and time-sensitive environments.

Daily Emotion Card

What happens:

  • Parents record their child’s morning mood.

  • Teachers add the child’s mood again in the afternoon.

  • The app combines both into a simple Daily Emotion Card that parents can review with their child at home.

Why it matters:

  • Turns daily updates into a shared emotional story instead of long text reports.

  • Helps parents start meaningful conversations with their child.

  • Strengthens connection between families and teachers through clear, visual communication.

“A simple card that turns daily routines into meaningful family moments.”

Manner Time (Quiet Hours)

What happens:

  • Messages sent after school hours are queued automatically.

  • Parents see a friendly popup: “The teacher is resting, your message will be sent at 9AM ☕.”

  • The message is delivered the next morning when the teacher is available.

Why it matters:

  • Protects teachers’ work–life balance without breaking parent trust.

  • Gives parents reassurance that their message is safe and will be delivered.

  • Builds a healthier communication culture between teachers and families.

“Parents feel reassured knowing their message will be safely delivered.”

Testing & Learnings

What I tested

  • Message scheduling & quiet hours

  • Daily Emotion Card flow (parent input AM → teacher update PM)

  • Multilingual translation toggle

Key learnings

  • Teachers felt more relaxed with scheduled messages and not using personal phones.

  • Parents wanted simpler ways to see emotions at a glance, not long reports.

  • Visual summaries encouraged parent–child conversations.

  • Clear time boundaries reduced stress and built trust.

Next improvements

  • Make the message inbox easier to find

  • Add stronger visual cues to message delivery states

  • Simplify reactions and replies for parents

Read more of my other projects