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Happy School

Sharon Pradeep

Back

Happy School

Back

Happy School

Happy School

EdTech

Product

Mobile

Two apps, one product. Built for a 9-year-old who wants fun, a parent who wants accountability, and a tutor who just needs the job to not get in the way.

Happy School

EdTech

Product

Mobile

Two apps, one product. Built for a 9-year-old who wants fun, a parent who wants accountability, and a tutor who just needs the job to not get in the way.

Happy School

EdTech

Product

Mobile

Two apps, one product. Built for a 9-year-old who wants fun, a parent who wants accountability, and a tutor who just needs the job to not get in the way.

Project insights

My Role

  • Solo Product Designer

  • Illustrator

The Team

  • Product manager

  • 2 developers

Results

  • ⏱️ Average timespent of 8.2 minutes in the app outside of scheduled sessions

  • 📈 Session attendance improved by 40%

  • ⏱️ Average timespent of 8.2 minutes in the app outside of scheduled sessions

  • 📈 Session attendance improved by 40%

The Story of Mariyam

Mariyam is in Grade 8. Not failing, not excelling. Somewhere in the middle, where most kids quietly stay. Maths has never really clicked for her.

One evening she asks her mom for the phone. Her mom smiled,

handed it over and said


"Let's do something different on the phone today."

One evening she asks her mom for the phone. Her mom smiled,

handed it over and said


"Let's do something different on the phone today."

One evening she asks her mom for the phone. Her mom smiled,

handed it over and said


"Let's do something different on the phone today."

"Hmm, what is this. Not a study video. Not a worksheet. Looks interesting"

"Hmm, what is this. Not a study video. Not a worksheet. Looks interesting"

"Hmm, what is this. Not a study video. Not a worksheet. Looks interesting"

A giraffe on the screen. Sitting cross-legged, reading a book, surrounded by paintbrushes and rulers and alarm clocks. Something about it caught her.

A giraffe on the screen. Sitting cross-legged, reading a book, surrounded by paintbrushes and rulers and alarm clocks. Something about it caught her.

A giraffe on the screen. Sitting cross-legged, reading a book, surrounded by paintbrushes and rulers and alarm clocks. Something about it caught her.

She typed in the Student ID her mom gave her.

A set of avatars, different faces, different styles. Like picking a character in Gacha Life. She spotted a cool girl that looked just like her.

She typed in the Student ID her mom gave her.

A set of avatars, different faces, different styles. Like picking a character in Gacha Life. She spotted a cool girl that looked just like her.

She typed in the Student ID her mom gave her.

A set of avatars, different faces, different styles. Like picking a character in Gacha Life. She spotted a cool girl that looked just like her.

That's me !

That's me !

That's me !

Her home screen loaded. She glanced at it for a second, then did a double take.


"Ravi Sir is waiting for you". Green dot. Live Now.


Her stomach did that thing. The one right before something actually starts. She tapped the arrow before she could think about it.


He was already there.

Her home screen loaded. She glanced at it for a second, then did a double take.


"Ravi Sir is waiting for you". Green dot.

Live Now.


Her stomach did that thing. The one right before something actually starts. She tapped the arrow before she could think about it.


He was already there.

Her home screen loaded. She glanced at it for a second, then did a double take.


"Ravi Sir is waiting for you". Green dot. Live Now.


Her stomach did that thing. The one right before something actually starts. She tapped the arrow before she could think about it.


He was already there.

The session ended. Mariyam sat back. That was actually fun. Not like the recorded videos her school sent. Ravi Sir was there for her, only her.


She closed the session. A fox appeared on screen, head tilted, waiting.


"How was today's class"?


Looking at her like it genuinely wanted to know. Four stars. She didn't even have to think about it. The fox went absolutely wild.


She laughed. Six seconds. Done. She actually wanted to do it again.

A notification came in that evening. Ravi Sir had sent an assignment.


She opened it. First two questions, fine. Third one she stared at it for a full minute. Nothing.

"I need to ask about this to Ravi sir, Oh here is the chat option"

"I need to ask about this to Ravi sir, Oh here is the chat option"

"I need to ask about this to Ravi sir, Oh here is the chat option"

She scrolled down and found the chat. Typed out her question, half expecting to wait till tomorrow. Ravi Sir replied in ten minutes.

"Oh. That's it?"

"Oh. That's it?"

"Oh. That's it?"

She finished the assignment and submitted it. Done.

Then she noticed the coins. She'd earned some for attending class, for submitting the assignment. They'd been quietly adding up without her realising.

"What do I do with these?"

"What do I do with these?"

"What do I do with these?"

She found the Game Center. Dark purple, different from everything else in the app. Like a back room she wasn't sure she was allowed into. Chess, sudoku, crossword. She tried chess.

She lost. Opened it again the next morning.

Three day streak.

Somewhere between the sessions, the assignments, and the chess games she kept losing, something had quietly shifted. She was opening the app before her mom said anything.


Her mom noticed. She didn't say much.

Just smiled the same smile from that first evening.


Something different, indeed.

Where this started ?
Here is how it was built.

Happy School is a product by Aifer, a small edtech company based in Kerala, India. Their concept: Tutor-led, 1-on-1 learning where parents stay in control, but the child has their own world inside the app.

I joined with nothing designed. No screens, no flows. Just a feature list and a clear target user: a Grade 1-12 student in peri-urban South India whose parents want more accountability than YouTube but less aggression than BYJU'S.

How 'Happy School' works before the app takes over
How 'Happy School' works
before the app takes over

Lead

Connects

Lead

Connects

Lead

Connects

Kid

Assessment

Kid

Assessment

Kid

Assessment

Subjects

Identified

Subjects

Identified

Subjects

Identified

Product

Enrolment

Product

Enrolment

Product

Enrolment

Live 1-on-1

Live 1-on-1

Live 1-on-1

[App takes over]

[App takes over]

[App takes over]

What we heard when
we actually listened.
☕ Home Interviews

12 parents + 8 students, ages 7–14. Held at home. Siblings present when possible. We wanted to watch device-sharing happen live.

🔭 Competitor benchmarking

Reviewed Byju's, Vedantu, Khan Academy, and Duolingo. Focused specifically on how each handles motivation, age range, and parent/child split.

🗂️ Tutor Workflow Mapping

6 tutors. WhatsApp threads, handwritten sheets, verbal check-ins. We mapped every gap.

Behind-the-scenes process work

Key takeaways
🎮
Games are the language kids speak

Every student under 12 mentioned a game unprompted.

📱
Device ownership stops at Grade 4

Younger children use a shared family phone daily. Multi-student wasn't a nice-to-have, it was a must.

🧩
Characters build memory

Kids described apps by their characters, not features. "The one with the owl" stuck more than any product name.

👩‍👦
Parents don't trust self-reporting

They needed to see progress in the app, not hear it from their child or wait for a monthly report.

😤
Apps that feel "school-y" get abandoned

Warmth kept kids coming back. Clinical interfaces got deleted by week 3.

Market Position

EdTech either teaches to the masses or feels like more school. Happy School sits in the gap - assessment-led, 1-on-1, built for families sharing one device.

Platform

Platform

Model

Model

Assessment-led

Enrolment

Assessment-led

Enrolment

Parent Dashboard

Parent Dashboard

Multi-student /

Shared Device

Multi-student /

Shared Device

K–12 Age Range

K–12 Age Range

Happy School (In Plan)

Happy School (In Plan)

Happy School (In Plan)

1:1 Live tutoring

1:1 Live tutoring

1:1 Live tutoring

Built In

Built In

Byju's

Byju's

Byju's

Recorded + live

Recorded + live

Vedantu

Vedantu

Vedantu

1:1 Live tutoring

1:1 Live tutoring

~ Partial

Khan Academy for Kids

Khan Academy for Kids

Khan Academy for Kids

Self-paced

Self-paced

Duolingo Kids

Duolingo Kids

Duolingo Kids

Self-paced

Self-paced

K5 Only

K5 Only

K5 Only

The Problem

The old system wasn't a product. It was a group chat.

Sessions over WhatsApp. Attendance by screenshot. It worked until it didn't.

The old system wasn't a product. It was a group chat. Sessions over WhatsApp. Attendance by screenshot. It worked until it didn't.

46%
Dropped off by month 2
31%
Assignment submission rate
0%
Session ratings collected
57%
Families with 2+ children enrolled
1 in 3
Families reported schedule confusion
1 in 6
Tutors reported schedule confusion
Breaking down the problem
🥱 No reason to come back

Nothing between sessions kept kids engaged. No hooks, no rewards, no personality.

🖥 One phone, two kids

57% of families on one device. No profile switching. No separated schedules.

🎂 K to 12 is a massive range

A 6-year-old and a 16-year-old can't feel the same way about the same interface.

👻 Tutors were flying blind

No post-session ratings, No way to know if a student was struggling or just bored.

Overview of the redesigned experience

Five decisions that
shaped the product.
  1. An avatar for everyone in the room.

Every user - student, parent, and tutor picks an avatar at setup. It shows up everywhere: home screen, session cards, student lists.


When a child sees the face they chose, it stops feeling like a platform and starts feeling like theirs.

  1. One mascot builds brand recall.
    Ten builds 'subject recall'

When a child opens Maths, they see their fox. Opening Science means meeting the giraffe. The character becomes a signal:

"this is your space".

Behind the characters

I'm not a natural illustrator. Drawing was the part of this project I was least confident about and the one I spent the most time on.


The brief was clear: 10 characters, each assigned to a subject, warm enough for a 7-year-old, distinct enough to be remembered. Babyish was intentional. The audience skews young and the characters needed to feel approachable and friendly not sophisticated.


Getting 10 of them to feel like they belonged to the same world, while each one still felt distinct, was harder than it looks.

  1. One device. Three kids. Zero mix-ups.

57% of families had 2+ enrolled children on one phone. Without a clean switching mechanism, the wrong student was attending the wrong class.

✅Account switcher in the hamburger menu - two taps from anywhere in the app, always showing the active student's name and grade


✅Fully isolated per profile - coins, schedule, assignments, and progress are all separate. Switching doesn't cross-contaminate anything.


✅"Switch to Parent" shortcut - parents can jump to their own app view without re-authenticating

Account Switcher

Account Switcher

Account Switcher - Hamburger

Account Switcher - Hamburger

Game Center

Game Center

  1. Earn coins. Play games. Actually come back.

This wasn't in the original plan. Round 2 of usability testing revealed that students had no reason to open the app between sessions.


The coin system and Game Center were introduced specifically to solve this.

✅Coin balance visible at all times - shown in the hamburger menu and the header. Visibility at the moment of action drives behaviour.


✅ Class rank + total rank - keeps competition achievable. Students know where they stand within their class, not just globally.


✅ Games aren't purely educational - chess, sudoku, and crossword feel like a real break, not edutainment dressed up as homework.

  1. If a 10-year-old wouldn't say it, rewrite it.

Most of the app copy was written twice. The first pass sounded like every other edtech product - clear, functional, forgettable.


The second pass went through one filter: read it aloud.

If it sounds like a government form, it goes.

Most of the app copy was written twice. The first pass sounded like every other edtech product - clear, functional, forgettable.


The second pass went through one filter: read it aloud. If it sounds like a government form, it goes.

The rewrites were some of the highest-impact changes in the product. Not because the original copy was wrong but because the right words made the whole experience feel consistent with everything else we'd built.

Before

Before

After

After

"Enter your credentials to proceed"

"Enter your credentials to proceed"

"Enter your credentials to proceed"

"Hello Champ, log in with the ID your parent set up for you"

"Hello Champ, log in with the ID your parent set up for you"

"Hello Champ, log in with the ID your parent set up for you"

"Live Started"

"Live Started"

"Live Started"

"Ravi Sir is waiting for you"

"Ravi Sir is waiting for you"

"Ravi Sir is waiting for you"

"Rate this session"

"Rate this session"

"Rate this session"

"How was today's class?"

"How was today's class?"

"How was today's class?"

"Assignment submitted successfully"

"Assignment submitted successfully"

"Assignment submitted successfully"

"Done! Ravi Sir will take a look soon"

"Done! Ravi Sir will take a look soon"

"Done! Ravi Sir will take a look soon"

Design system development

Built from scratch. Every component, colour token, and type style documented so the team could build without asking.

Covering components across the student and tutor apps, the system was the thing that made consistency possible at this scale. A designer joining tomorrow could pick it up without a handover call.

Built from scratch. Every component, colour token, and type style documented so the team could build without asking.

Covering components across the student and tutor apps, the system was the thing that made consistency possible at this scale. A designer joining tomorrow could pick it up without a handover call.

Excerpts from design system
Built Different

The Happy School app frontend was built in Flutter using Claude Code. Design system components were translated directly into code which made the handoff leaner than any spec doc could.


Instead of a developer interpreting a Figma file, the components were already running. Every spacing decision, colour token, and interaction had to be precise enough to survive implementation.

What is next? - Beta Findings

The product has completed its internal beta. A wider rollout is underway and this case study will be updated as real data comes in.


The beta threw up something worth paying attention to.

78%
Students under 12 engaged with their subject mascot within the first session.
63%
Assignment submission rate, up from 21%
67%
Visited the Game Center in their first week.
40%
Higher session attendance among students with a Game Center habit.

Assignment Submission Rate : The single biggest jump in the beta. From 21% to 63% Adding in-app chat was the change. When students could ask a doubt without leaving the app, they finished. The barrier wasn't motivation it was friction.

Students who asked a question mid-assignment were more likely to finish than those who didn't ask anything. Asking for help turned out to be a signal of engagement, not struggle.

Assignment Submission Rate : The single biggest jump in the beta. From 21% to 63% Adding in-app chat was the change. When students could ask a doubt without leaving the app, they finished. The barrier wasn't motivation it was friction.

Students who asked a question mid-assignment were more likely to finish than those who didn't ask anything. Asking for help turned out to be a signal of engagement, not struggle.

Assignment Submission Rate : The single biggest jump in the beta. From 21% to 63% Adding in-app chat was the change. When students could ask a doubt without leaving the app, they finished. The barrier wasn't motivation it was friction.

Students who asked a question mid-assignment were more likely to finish than those who didn't ask anything. Asking for help turned out to be a signal of engagement, not struggle.

Game Center : Students who visited the Game Center at least twice a week showed significantly better attendance. The app had become part of their routine not just a place to attend class.

Game Center : Students who visited the Game Center at least twice a week showed significantly better attendance. The app had become part of their routine not just a place to attend class.

Game Center : Students who visited the Game Center at least twice a week showed significantly better attendance. The app had become part of their routine not just a place to attend class.

What needs work?
29%
Mascot engagement among Grade 11–12 students
41%
Students missed their first session notification
52s
Average time to find the assignment after a session ended

Mascot Engagement : The characters landed differently by age. Younger students noticed them, named them, mentioned them unprompted. Older students were indifferent what they responded to was speed, the leaderboard, and getting in and out quickly. Same product, two very different relationships with it.

Mascot Engagement : The characters landed differently by age. Younger students noticed them, named them, mentioned them unprompted. Older students were indifferent what they responded to was speed, the leaderboard, and getting in and out quickly. Same product, two very different relationships with it.

Mascot Engagement : The characters landed differently by age. Younger students noticed them, named them, mentioned them unprompted. Older students were indifferent what they responded to was speed, the leaderboard, and getting in and out quickly. Same product, two very different relationships with it.

Notification Blindness : Nearly half didn't catch the first session alert. Most were on a shared family phone where notifications get buried. The app had no fallback nudge, no second reminder,

Notification Blindness : Nearly half didn't catch the first session alert. Most were on a shared family phone where notifications get buried. The app had no fallback nudge, no second reminder,

Notification Blindness : Nearly half didn't catch the first session alert. Most were on a shared family phone where notifications get buried. The app had no fallback nudge, no second reminder,

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© 2026 Sharon Pradeep. Hand-crafted in Figma & Framer

Built in Framer

© 2026 Sharon Pradeep. Hand-crafted in Figma & Framer

Built in Framer

© 2026 Sharon Pradeep. Hand-crafted in Figma & Framer

Built in Framer