December 1, 2021

4 Tips for Designing Content in Your Learning Management System

Whether your LMS helps users review videos, work through interactive experiences, or read .PDF resources, designing content that creates a user-friendly information hierarchy for students is a major challenge.  For starters, your users likely have many different content needs. Are they tackling lessons asynchronously on their own time, or are they visiting your LMS to download resources to use later? Maybe it's both? No matter what kind of edTech tool you're building, students need content that's digestible, affirmative, and self-contained. That's especially true for your LMS!  From readability to content sequencing, here's everything you need to know as you rethink…

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November 17, 2021

How to Level-Set with edTech Product Stakeholders throughout the Discovery Process

You're about to design a brand new edTech product, and you know the first step is to align internally with all the product stakeholders. Easier said than done, right? After all, you still have to: Get the right product stakeholders in the room Identify your most pressing user challenges Prioritize your project goals And use the right visual tools to keep everyone focused. Read on to discover how spending more time on stakeholder alignment during the discovery process will save you time, money, and heartache—all while setting you up for success once it's time to launch your new learning tool!…

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November 11, 2021

How to Run a Design Thinking Workshop for edTech Products

EdTech is in the middle of a major transitional moment, and the stakes for education have never been higher.  To make matters even more complicated, we don't yet know the full impact the pandemic has had on both teachers and learners. From learning loss to the effects of social isolation, students may face an uphill battle in the classroom next year.  Meanwhile, teachers' relationships to technology have changed. There's still so much more to learn about their professional needs and expectations when it comes to edTech. Even as we're operating under plenty of unknowns for Fall 2021, product owners are…

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November 9, 2021

Outsourcing Your edTech UX Design: Everything You Need to Know

Weighing the benefits vs. challenges of outsourcing UX design is an important part of developing and launching your digital tool.  For instance, your company might not have internal UX resources—even though your product relies heavily on technology or a sleek user interface. External UX teams can be a great way to bring those skill sets to your existing product team. You might even be in the process of strengthening your company's internal UX capabilities. If that's the case, there are compelling reasons to hire external UX teams as you invest in the internal resources that make in-house product development and…

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October 26, 2021

How User Research Findings Can Help Futureproof Your edTech Product

User experience research, or UXR, is the key to understanding your primary users without losing valuable time or resources. Post-pandemic, your user research findings are more important than ever.  How are teachers using your product in their classroom? Does your product help them transition easily between in-person and hybrid learning? Who's the next person they'll talk to about your product's output or analytics? The more details you uncover about your users and their environment in your qualitative research findings, the easier it will be to continue designing edTech for the long term. We talked to Jessica Millstone, former Director of…

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October 13, 2021

Digital Project Manager

We're hiring! Backpack Interactive is a small but mighty strategy, UX/UI and edTech design studio. We are committed to serving our educational and non-profit partners with products and interactive experiences that support educators and learners where they are. We look to hire the very best problem solvers we can find to join our award-winning team. You’ll be responsible for managing 3-5 projects (depending on duration & complexity) across the product/development cycle. You’ll work collaboratively with the Backpack team, developers, and partners to make sure products meet their user experience and educational goals, while also delivering on time and within budget.…

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October 11, 2021

15 Ways Universal Design Improves User Experience for All Students

This fall, most schools are back to in-person learning. But the rise of the Delta variant means virtual or hybrid learning isn't out of the picture yet. Parents and educators are also searching for edTech products that will help close instructional gaps from the past year. For parents and teachers of students with special needs, identifying software driven by a universal design user experience is even more urgent. When you ensure that your learning products are not just inclusive but accommodating to students with special needs, you improve overall usability. edTech products that adopt a universal design user interface help…

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October 5, 2021

UX/ UI Designer

We're hiring! Backpack Interactive is a small but mighty edTech strategy, UX, and UI design studio. We are committed to serving our educational and non-profit partners with products and interactive experiences that support teachers and students where they are. We look to hire the very best design thinkers and problem solvers we can find to join our award-winning team. You will be responsible for creating smart UX and then turning that into beautiful, production-ready UI designs. You’ll work collaboratively with the Backpack and development teams to make sure products and experiences meet user experience and educational goals while pushing design…

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September 28, 2021

Working with a Authors as edTech Product Stakeholders

Creating a new edTech product based on original print material from an author or publisher is a complex undertaking. You might be tempted to dive into the design process without bringing your author along, or wait until the very end to ask for their feedback. But don't take the risk. Whether you're an edTech design company or an in-house team at an educational publisher, you'll get the best results when you enlist your print authors as co-designers and product stakeholders.  After all, their material has already been vetted and sequenced in a print curriculum. Its success in that market is…

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September 10, 2021

What Your Development Team Needs to Know to Convert Print Content into an edTech Tool

Transforming a print product into an edTech tool is a big undertaking. To make it all happen, you'll likely need lots of new people on your team. This includes developers who can help you identify exciting new technology opportunities, as well as a UX team who understands the changing needs of teachers and students. Because of the pandemic, teachers and students have become more sophisticated users of technology. Meanwhile, consumers are on the hunt for learning products that offer the students in their family something more than a print book or workbook.  This means product owners have an incredible opportunity…

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September 1, 2021

Shifts in EdTech: What This Top-Level Hiring Trend Means for You

Tech-focused edTech startups are ramping up their hiring, especially for roles at the intersection of UX, product, and technology.  Over the past month, new chief product officer positions have popped up at: GoCoach, a professional development and education platform DreamBox Learning, a math software company Sketchy, an illustrated learning platform for medical and pharmaceutical students What does this shift in edTech hiring mean for you and your company? And how can you get ahead of the curve through UX edTech research and product planning? We break it all down for you below. Why Smart edTech Start-Ups Are Investing in UX …

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