Preschool OutcomeMeasurement

Purpose and Objectives

The Preschool Outcome Measure (POM) tool is the result of an extensive research and development process.ACER won a contract for the Fed government to build the POM tool that aims to offers teachers and educators new ways of understand, measure and lead conversations about children learning and quality of teaching. As the UX Lead, I was primarily involved in the Small Scale Trial (SST) and the National Applied Trial (NAT), contributing to the delivery of a validated formative assessment tool aligned with learning progressions.

The platform is designed for educators and teachers to support children’s development in oral language, literacy, and executive function across diverse Australian preschool programs.

  • Leading the design of the SST version and the subsequent NAT version of the tool, which introduced adaptive functionality and both teacher-led and student-led interfaces. The design was responsive across desktop and tablet devices.

  • Conducting usability research by gathering embedded feedback from teachers and educators in varied settings during the SST phase.

  • Iteratively refining the user experience and interface for the NAT version based on real-world feedback to ensure the tool met both pedagogical and practical classroom needs.

The Process & Activities

As the UX Lead, I was responsible for defining and evolving the end-to-end UX process across the project lifecycle from requirements gathering and initial research through to design, testing, and iteration.

One of the key initiatives I led was the development of the Preschool Outcome Measures (POM) tool, which is designed to support educators in assessing early childhood learning. A key focus of the design was accessibility—embedding inclusive elements that accommodate children with diverse abilities and learning needs by creating accessible and developmentally appropriate tasks.

Throughout the Small Scale Trial (SST) and the broader consultation process, we gathered valuable insights into the user experience. These insights were synthesised and directly incorporated into the enhanced National Applied Trial (NAT)version of the POM tool.

Core Activities

  • Led requirement-gathering workshops with both internal teams and external stakeholders to align on objectives and user needs.

  • Conducted comprehensive UX research, including market analysis, interviews with educators and stakeholders, and focus groups to help shape the project scope and design direction.

  • Established scalable DesignOps practices and delivered design solutions from low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity, clickable prototypes—leveraging advanced Figma features such as variables, components, and tokens.

  • Led and managed mixed-method UX research initiatives, including user interviews, focus groups, mental model mapping, contextual inquiries, usability testing, and behavioral analytics to inform iterative improvements.

  • Provided UX consultancy to both internal and external stakeholders, while mentoring junior designers and fostering a user-centered design culture across cross-functional teams, including business analysts and developers.

Conducting Discovery and Research

  • User Research:

    • Assessment in early childhood centers sparks debate, with concerns over the appropriateness of formal assessment for young children. Consequently, there are few competitors in this domain.

    • In Australia, StoryPark has been widely adopted in early childhood centres. Though not exclusively an assessment tool, it facilitates educators in observing students and monitoring their development and behaviors

    • The objective of this competitor analysis is to evaluate a range of applications tailored for gathering data in early childhood education. By evaluating their interface designs, we aim to identify strengths and weaknesses to inform the design of the POM platform.

      Research Goals:
      Assess the user interface (UI) design of competitor platforms, focusing on factors such as layout, navigation, and visual hierarchy, to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

    • Identify key features offered by assessment platforms and conduct a comprehensive review and conduct a comprehensive review of the identified key features, assessing their functionality, usability, and effectiveness in supporting the assessment needs of educators, administrators, and other stakeholders.

    • Identify emerging trends and innovative approaches in interface design within the early childhood education assessment space, drawing insights from competitor platforms and broader industry developments.

  • Intended impact

    • Insights gained from the competitor analysis will inform design decisions throughout the product development process. It will help to make informed choices about features, functionality, user interface design, and overall user experience.

    • By understanding the competitive landscape and industry trends, we can identify potential risks and challenges early in the design process. This allows us to proactively address issues and minimise the likelihood of negative impacts on the user experience.

Design Ops

Create a consistent re-usable component library

Design System:
Established a comprehensive design system, including typography, color palettes, and reusable UI components. Ensured WCAG compliance for accessibility.

Visual designs & prototyping

Goal: Create a visually appealing, accessible, and consistent design system.

  • Prototypes:
    Built high-fidelity prototypes for stakeholder reviews and usability testing, showcasing key pages like the homepage, candidate portal, and recruiter sections.

    • Tools Used: Figma for interactive prototyping, Adobe XD for animations.

Cross Colloboration

Goal: Foster alignment and smooth execution across teams.

  • Cross-Functional Colloboration : Conducted design reviews meetings with design teams and devs weeksly basis

  • Have and had continues colloborated with creative service (CS) team to get their feedback during final stage of design

Usability Testing and Iterations

Goal: Validate designs with real users and refine based on feedback.

  • Round 1 Testing: Small Scale Trial

  • Round 2 Testing: Underway
    NAT Research and Trial

Development Support

Goal: Ensure seamless design-to-development handoff.

  • Developer Collaboration:
    Worked closely with front-end and back-end teams to ensure fidelity to the designs. Provided detailed documentation, specs, and visual assets.

    • Tools Used: Figma, Figjam.

    • Dev-hand off and design gaps meetings & UAT Support

    • Clear documentation for handoffs between design and development teams.

  • Design QA:
    Reviewed staged builds to catch and resolve design inconsistencies before launch.