An internal Flo Design product, Edna is a web application designed and built for childminders, carers and teachers to manage their children through the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum.
The EYFS curriculum consists of over 400 learning goal statements that must be evidenced by the practitioner in the form of observations.
The majority of early years settings still carry out this process via a paper based system. This is both costly and time consuming.
We designed and built Edna to be quick, simple and easy to use. It enables practitioners to quickly take detailed observations, add photos and easily tag the relevant EYFS statement.
Additional communication features such as news feeds and comments mean that parents and carers can be kept informed of their child's day in real time.
Design. UX, UI & the brand.
We conducted extensive market and user research from the outset of the project. This included shadowing and interviewing early years practitioners to gain a solid understanding of how they work and how a system like Edna should work for them.
This groundwork lead to an intuitive product that is easy to use and which practitioners and parents love.
It was important that Edna didn't feel like a dull boring database application. We wanted it to have personality and be enjoyable to use. At the same time it needed to feel professional and trust worthy.
We developed a user interface and brand that strikes a balance between these desires. Using a bright, bold colour palette and simple, clear sans serif typography we were able to inject a level of playfulness and fun while keeping a professional feel.
The marketing site.
The accompanying marketing site had to clearly communicate the benefits of the app and fit tightly with the brand.
It features a comprehensive tour of the app, details on its pricing, a blog, customer support articles and clear calls to action for users to sign up.
The tech.
Edna has been developed as a distributed system. The frontend is built using ReactJS, which interacts with a REST API for data storage and retrieval. The API is written in Laravel. Payments and subscriptions are handled by the industry-leading payment gateway Stripe.