Designing for real classrooms, not perfect ones
- Zain Mahmood, Parent Zone Design Manager
Classrooms are never perfect. They’re busy, messy, full of competing needs and shifting priorities. When we design educational programmes, especially for schools, we’re not designing for an ideal environment.
We’re designing for teachers juggling lesson plans and pastoral care, for children with vastly differing support needs, and for parents and carers navigating challenges we might not even see.
This is why we are constantly improving our school products and programmes to meet user needs.
Listening and learning
One of the most important parts of designing educational programmes is getting outside of our own bubble. We listen, ask questions, and try to understand the people we’re designing for.
Whether that’s speaking to a SENCO in southeast London or chatting with a parent at a conference in central Amsterdam, the approach is the same: be present, be curious, and take every opportunity to learn.
We do structured interviews — but we also value informal conversations just as much. It’s often in those off-script moments that the most honest insights come out.
When we run focus groups, especially with parents, we always try to bring something physical — a prototype, an activity, anything they can engage with. It keeps the conversation grounded and helps them connect with the work on a more practical level.
Alongside that, desk research plays a crucial role — from surveys and data to news and case studies. The key is knowing how to filter that information, make sense of it, and communicate it clearly.
From insight to impact: how we built Talk:Tech
One example of this approach in action is Talk:Tech — a resource created to support conversations around technology use with students who have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN).
We began with conversations — with SLCN teachers, SENCOs and digital wellbeing specialists — to understand the challenges they face and existing gaps. We combined those insights with research to map out the real-world conditions our resources would need to respond to.
From that process, we developed core design principles, for truly inclusive design — grounded in what educators told us they needed:
- Make it visually engaging, yet not overwhelming
- Create space for human-to-human connection
- Use stories — but make them relatable and real
- Think in formats: Visual. Sound. Physical
- Adapt for different needs — differentiation isn’t optional
- Make the resources editable and easy to use
When we took our early prototypes to a teacher conference, we didn’t just ask for approval — we asked for honest critical feedback.
Designing for schools isn’t about perfection. It’s about iteration. It’s about listening to the people who live and work in real classrooms — and building things that make their day just a little bit easier, clearer, or more effective.
Stay in the loop
We’re continuing to develop and refine our secondary school resources — always shaped by the voices of students, families and educators.
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