Into the EdTech User Journey: The Hidden Challenges of the Course Selection Stage

Nov 30, 2022 Samuel Thomas

The course selection stage in the EdTech app user journey is profoundly important for educational app development companies. By enabling users to choose the right courses, companies can ensure they get the most out of the apps and inspire them to learn new skills. However, this complex process must be carefully executed to ensure that the users get the best possible experience from the app.

In the past two years, EdTech companies have enjoyed a surge of users due to the dependency on their platforms caused by the social distancing norms of the pandemic. Almost all EdTech app users strive to understand their career progression before choosing a course. Hence the onus is on education app development companies to consistently provide users with reliable information and tools to help them make informed choices about their careers. Unfortunately, hidden challenges in the course selection stage continue to impede user retention.

To overcome these challenges, education app development companies must look beyond the standard approach to EdTech app development!

Establishing High-Impact Course Selection

With the users entering EdTech app platforms with doubts and queries, it is of utmost importance to create an engaging experience that educates and entertains. EdTech platform designers must focus on engaging their audiences and creating a memorable experience. Here's how education app development companies can break the mold and adopt a new approach to development.

Intuitive Course Recommendations: Most apps seem content with delivering ‘personalized’ course recommendations at the domain or topic level. For example, a biotechnology student would receive a recommendation for a course on nanotechnology.

Yet, the platform may not necessarily make the relevance of nanotechnology transparent for a biotechnologist. EdTech companies must focus on leveraging user behavior and making recommendations that resonate with user aptitude and time in the field of study.

Insights into Instructor competence: Competitive EdTech apps tend to focus on instructor-led courses. As a result, the course content is created by an individual. To preserve the course quality in students’ curriculum, many schools introduce policies that direct subject matter experts to vet all course content before it is delivered to students. The problem with this approach is that the onus is on an educational institute to align the relevance of the course with a student’s interest. When they fall short, a highly motivated student can drop off in the user journey in the course selection stage.

Real-Time Interaction with Instructors: Real-time interaction with instructors is a crucial aspect of online learning experience. In the course selection stage, it instils confidence in a user's mind about their choice. But since the possibility of instructor interaction comes only after the user has enrolled, EdTech app developers must enable active interaction between the user and the instructor.

Currently, no eLearning mobile app development company provides chat features that facilitate meaningful real-time exchanges between parties.

Lack of User Schedule Optimization: Students are often discouraged by the stress of coping with strenuous academic schedules and abandon courses at the selection stage. But infusing schedule optimization features into the EdTech user journey can help education app development companies to make new headway in establishing new standards to enhance the user experience. In-app analytics, workflow integration and advanced calendar-based functionality are some areas they must enhance to ramp up user retention.

Career Counselling: In the era of mobile phones, cloud storage, big data, and data analytics, education must encompass guidance attuned to multiple student attributes. From personality development to career path selection, students could use counseling and mentoring services supplied with the courses they are interested in. Additionally, students seek deeper interactions with instructors and often seek career guidance. Unfortunately, most EdTech platforms don't facilitate the frictionless exchange of queries and answers.

Moving Towards Enhanced User Retention

As established, there are plenty of opportunities for EdTech app users to impact user retention by facilitating better course selection and progression for students. However, solutions to the challenges require a sequential approach with attention to the stage wise details.

Nalashaa's experience conceptualizing and developing mobile applications for the past 10 years can be a dark horse in the race for EdTech excellence. Drop us a line to chat with our code wizards at info@nalashaa.com and learn how you can revitalize the impact of your course selection stage.

Samuel Thomas

Samuel Thomas has over 6 years of experience in business development, Pre-sales, and IT consulting across Healthcare, Networking & Financial domains with extensive exposure to US Healthcare from a marketing & sales standpoint.

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