KiddiMath Practice App

I assumed the app wasn’t fully optimized to work alongside the student’s real learning flow. In each sub-level, students typically learn small formulas first, then practice a big grouped formula that combines what they’ve just studied. But the app only provided grouped exercises — there were no drills for the smaller parts.

This meant students couldn’t start using the app until they had learned all the formulas in the group, even though they might’ve been ready to practice parts of it earlier.

So I believed the app should be restructured to include smaller formulas alongside the big grouped ones — making it easier to use during the actual learning process, not just after it.

When we added small-step formulas into the app, it technically filled a gap: now students could review both individual and grouped concepts digitally, not just on paper. From the center’s perspective, that meant the app was more complete — a better teaching tool.

But from the student’s perspective, it didn’t change much. I had seen this firsthand as a former teacher: even when we replaced paper homework with app-based drills, many kids still skipped it. To them, it was still just “more homework.” They were already doing so much at school — this didn’t feel different.

That’s why I realized simply adding content wasn’t enough. I needed to find a way to make students want to practice — not just feel like they had to. Connecting practice to visible, motivating rewards was key to that shift.

Based on my first assumption, I proposed breaking formulas into single units to highlight how the old app didn’t support early-stage practice for students. I shared this with the teachers to see if the problem resonated with them — and they agreed it made sense.

They felt the new structure gave them more flexibility in class. It became a second tool alongside paper exercises, helping students train their speed and accuracy right from the start, without teachers having to prepare extra materials on their own.

From the interviews, I learned that many students already felt overwhelmed by schoolwork. More drills — even simplified ones — could make them feel worse if they kept getting things wrong.

That’s when I reframed the approach: instead of focusing on accuracy, I focused on accumulated progress. One correct answer wasn’t “1 out of 10” — it was a step forward -a small win, getting the student closer to a reward (like a badge or a higher position in the rankings). This new way of framing helped students feel motivated without pressure, while still meeting teachers’ expectations for a non-game-focused app.

Teachers shared that the main exercise screen — where students spend most of their time — required a bit of explanation the first time, especially for younger kids. I noticed that several less important buttons were given equal visual weight as the essential ones, which may have made the screen feel a bit busy. Simplifying the layout helped reduce friction, making it easier for teachers to guide students — and for kids to use the app more independently.

Badges and ranking are already built into the app, but they will not be 100% effective on their own. Without teachers introducing and explaining these features, children may not fully understand or pay attention to them. Teachers play a key role in helping students see the value of these rewards from the start. In addition, the center can strengthen engagement by linking badges and ranking with offline activities, offering extra gifts or recognition. This way, the app is not the only driver—it works best when supported by teachers and the center to truly spark children’s curiosity and motivation.

At the same time, although making mistakes may not heavily affect a child’s psychology in the short term, repeated errors still indicate a lack of progress and practicing formulas beyond their current ability. To make practice on the app more effective, teachers should be involved in guiding students toward the right formulas—helping them not only collect correct answers comfortably but also truly improve their math skills.

Previously, students were considered ready for mid-term or final exams once they had completed the paper-based curriculum and practiced all formulas. With the app, the center can now add new evaluation metrics: the number of badges collected and the consistency of daily practice (streaks).

If these numbers meet the expectations set by the center, they become strong indicators that a student is ready to take the exam. This provides the center with an additional, data-driven way to measure learning outcomes and ensure students meet the required standards.

Turning a design into a working product is not just about coding the UI—it also requires testing features, validating performance, and ensuring that the original set of math formulas are implemented correctly. All of this takes considerable time.

Because I didn’t fully understand this process, the center and I kept sending new formulas to be coded, even though the original formulas, features, performance, and UI fixes were not yet completed. This created unnecessary workload for the developer and caused significant delays.

The key learning is that understanding the development workflow is crucial. It allows me to prioritize correctly, avoid overloading developers too early, and strike a better balance between the center’s requests and the actual development timeline.

I realized that not every design detail in Figma can or should be implemented directly in code. While it’s easy to design freely, performance must also be considered to ensure the app runs smoothly. For example, I initially added a shadowed countdown bar in the exercise screen. However, this design was later removed during development because they caused performance issues like lagging. This taught me the importance of balancing creativity with feasibility right from the design stage.