David Haney
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Case study  /  Mobile app  /  Frontline Education

School, in a parent’s pocket.

ParentAccess is the mobile app that lets Ohio parents and students check grades, homework, attendance and schedules without digging through a website. I designed it from first research to hand-off, as the only designer on the team.

Client
Frontline Education · Ohio SIS / ProgressBook
Role
Sole designer, with one product manager and two offshore developers
Scope
Research, information architecture, interaction and UI design, hand-off
Result
4.7 stars on the App Store from 5.6K ratings

01 / The context

A web portal, squeezed onto a phone.

ParentAccess is the parent and student portal inside the Ohio SIS gradebook from Frontline Education. It is part of the student management system used by 70% of Ohio districts, and in 2020 it logged more than 530 million page views.

On a phone it was a browser page with a responsive layout, which meant the desktop site shrank to fit. Parents and students could get to their information, but they had to know where to look.

70%

of Ohio districts

530M

page views in 2020

5

ways in to a class

Old design · Replaced

Before: the old responsive web view, since replaced by the new app

02 / The challenge

One designer, one product manager, two developers offshore.

With a team that small and spread out, every decision had to be backed by evidence and every screen had to explain itself. Guessing wasn’t an option, and neither was a design that needed me in the room to be built.

01

Simplify the structure

Five different ways into a class meant every family found its own route. One clear path is easier to learn and to build.

02

Put the important things at their fingertips

Find out what parents and students want first, then make that the first thing they see.

03

Nest everything else in simple buckets

Less-used features stay one logical step away, grouped the way people expect to find them.

03 / The structure

From five ways in to a few clear places.

Today: a complex structure with redundant access points

Proposed: Home, Classes, Assignments, Settings

I mapped what existed, then folded it into a handful of places. Upcoming and overdue assignments and recent grades live on Home. Everything about one class sits inside that class. The shipped app keeps three places in a bottom bar: Menu, Dashboard and Assignments.

04 / The research

Ask first. Then draw.

To learn what matters most, I ran an unmoderated UserZoom study as a live intercept on the ParentAccess site: a pop-up invited people to take part on their own, at their own pace. 69 studies were completed within 24 hours, averaging seven minutes each.

One hurdle: our UserZoom terms didn’t allow studying anyone under 18. So the screener asked parents to ask their students what mattered most to them.

What matters most when you log in?

Parents

Grades
231
Homework
171
Report card
85
Class information
56
Alerts
46
Attendance
34
Calendar
29
Schedule
28
News
24
Fees
17
Account info
8

Students, as told to their parents

Grades
76
Homework
71
Report card
15
Schedule
10
Calendar
4
Attendance
4
Alerts
4
Class information
3
News
2

Grades and homework led by a wide margin for both groups. Report cards and class information came next. Alerts, attendance and news mattered far less, so they moved out of the way.

A click test

Where would you click first?

Participants were shown the new dashboard and asked: you’ve just logged in to check on your child’s education, where would you click first? The clicks gathered around the class grades and the main navigation.

I kept the prototype in black and white. ProgressBook’s brand colors were still blue, on their way to purple, and I didn’t want color to confuse the test.

A tree test

Can people find it?

Tree tests checked that the structure matched how people think. Asked where they would find an assignment due this month, 38 people chose Homework, then Homework, and 11 chose Homework, then Calendar. Both are correct paths, and both sit under Homework.

05 / Beyond the research

The data said grades first. Students needed grades second.

Grades topped every ranking, so for parents the app opens on Grades. For students it doesn’t. Working with our clients, we learned that students can be sensitive, even embarrassed, about their grades, and districts asked us not to show them the moment a student signs in.

So the student view opens on Assignments, and Grades sits one tab over. Same information, different first impression.

Parent view

GradesNewsAttendance

Student view

AssignmentsGrades

Research tells you what matters. Care tells you when to show it.

06 / A small moment

Even a perfect record deserved a screen.

Most attendance screens only deliver bad news: absences, tardies, dates. For a student with none, that screen would have been empty.

So I designed the empty state as a reward. When a student has zero absences and zero tardies, the card turns green, says “Congratulations!” and tells them they have perfect attendance, with a gold star next to it. It is the one attendance screen that gets to be simply good news, and it shipped in the released app.

It follows the same thinking as the student view opening on Assignments: the app is used by teenagers as much as by their parents, and what they see first should feel fair to them.

From the design stage, shown with the student photo used in the prototype.

First passOne big count in a banner. Clear, but it shouted, and it couldn’t separate absences from tardies.
Second passTwo compact counts, absences and tardies, each opening its own list. Calmer, and the color is now doing a job.
Period viewThe same pattern for class periods, with swipeable days. When the count climbs, the color gets more urgent.

Color that grows with the count

Quiet when it’s fine, louder when it matters.

Rather than make every number alarming, the counts intensify in three steps as they grow. Phase one hard-codes the steps. Phase two would let each district set its own thresholds, so the color matches the attendance policy or state rule the school already follows.

One note from the board: check the contrast of the gold and teal buttons against accessibility guidelines.

Phase 1 · fixed steps

Phase 2 · thresholds set by the district

07 / The critique

We argued with it before we built it.

Early in the design, I took the native mobile prototype to a design critique with the wider product team. The goal was a native experience that simplified the existing desktop and mobile web apps, with navigation people could understand and use quickly. Students and parents were the primary audience. Teachers and school administrators were contributors.

I came with research, wireframes and a clickable prototype, and a review of mobile patterns: a tab bar for primary navigation, full-screen views for secondary navigation, portrait only, and no hamburger menu.

Patterns reviewed

Tab bar for primary navigationFull-screen secondary viewsForced portraitHamburger, left out

Questions from the room

Should the app default to the same child every time?

What more should you see when you open an absence?

What is the one thing to look at in Daily Attendance?

Are there categories beyond excused and unexcused?

Action items

Five notes to take back to the design.

Calmer attendance.

The Daily Attendance card read as busy. Show each count as a compact badge instead of a banner.

Excused absences, shown correctly.

Parents in the research wanted excused absences to read as excused. Label every entry.

A clearer student switcher.

The photos in the dropdown were large and it wasn’t obvious they were tappable. Shrink them and add a caret.

Alerts that can’t hide.

People link alerts to their child’s grades, so they matter. Badge the Menu tab and the My Account header.

Icons over labels.

In the calendar view, replace the word “Calendars” with an icon.

You can see several of these in the attendance screens above: counts as compact badges, every entry labeled excused or unexcused, and an alert badge on the Menu tab.

08 / The app

Built in Sketch, built to be built.

This design has been in families’ pockets for years, and it has stood the test of time. The visual style belongs to its moment. The decisions underneath it, the structure, the research-led priorities and the care for students, are why it still holds up.

A · The dashboard

Every class, at a glance.

Each class shows its current grade, the as-of date and the teacher. Small colored counts summarize homework. A low grade tints the row amber and a failing one red, so a parent sees where to look before reading a number.

B · Homework

Late first, then today, then next.

Homework opens on what is missing, then what is due today, then what is coming up. A posted-homework tab and a month calendar are one tap away, so a student can plan the week without leaving the app.

C · Inside a class

Assignments, class info and resources.

Open a class to see graded and upcoming work, the teacher’s welcome note with section, period and room, and a shelf of documents and links. Standards-based classes show scores by standard, not only a single grade.

D · Attendance and schedule

Absences, tardies and the day’s blocks.

Daily attendance totals absences and tardies and lists them by month. Period attendance breaks them down by class. The schedule shows each block, room and teacher, with a flag when a fee balance is due.

E · Report cards

Every term, in one list.

The latest report card opens in one tap, and history is grouped by school year and term, so a family can look back without asking the school.

F · Made for families

More than one child. More than one device habit.

A parent switches between children in one tap. Locker codes sit behind Touch ID. Settings let people require Touch ID, turn on Dark Mode, and choose which classes and events appear on their calendar.

G · Staying informed

A menu, alerts, and honest errors.

The menu puts every area one tap away, with search. Alerts bring building news, update notices and what’s new. When the school’s system is down, the app says so plainly instead of showing an empty screen.

09 / The outcome

Families rate it 4.7 stars.

Years after launch, thousands of parents and students have rated the app on the App Store and Google Play, and the scores are still high.

4.7App Store
5.6K ratings
4.6Google Play
2.1K reviews · 50K+ downloads

Ratings as listed in October 2026. The store listing is named ProgressBook Parent/Student.

In their words

“Progress Book - Excellent Service”
A parent says the app helps them keep track of their kids’ assignments and late work, and lets them message teachers directly.

App Store review · July 2024

“Very helpful”
A student says it helps them check grades, plan for honor roll and see assignments and schedules.

App Store review · December 2023

“I highly recommend Progress Book.”
A reviewer praises it for tracking grades, report cards, schedules and teachers.

App Store review · October 2023