Intro to
Quest Alliance
Quest Alliance is a non-profit that partners with 3,350+ institutions to equip youth with 21st-century skills, reaching 1.9 million learners and 27,500 educators through education technology and capacity building.
Team and role
Research & Design
with Anisha Bijur (Lead), Tanvi Maisheri & Rishiraj Charan (Product Design) - Project with NOCT, India
Industry
Education, Non-Profit
Goal
Understand why educators weren't meaningfully engaging with the Quest App, and what a system built around their actual motivations would need to look like.
Solution
Primary research across six states, synthesized into behavioral segments and key findings, turned into opportunity areas and validated concepts through a collaborative workshop with Quest Alliance and direct testing with end-users.
Impact
Distilled 35 interviews across 6 states and a 15+ product study into 5 insights that reframed how Quest understood engagement, then into 4 prioritized opportunity areas, validated with 8 educators, that became the brief for a redesign now in development for 27,500 educators.
The Problem
Quest came to us with an open-ended goal: understand why educators weren't meaningfully engaging with the Quest App, and how to improve both retention and depth of learning.
At the time, the app functioned as a content library with no structured learning path. Our job was to uncover what actually drives or blocks self-driven learning among educators, and design a system, a new product or an evolution of the existing app, that made learning more intentional, relevant, and easy to apply in classrooms for the benefit of learners.
Understanding ground realities through primary research
To get a genuine read on educators' mindsets, needs, and challenges, we:
Deep-dived into Quest Alliance's past research, current programs, and their understanding of the educational ecosystems they work in.
Conducted 35 online and in-person interviews with teachers and Quest stakeholders across six states.
Split the fieldwork across the team: I went to Haryana and Karnataka with a team member while another covered Gujarat, and we all ran additional virtual interviews across Jharkhand, Odisha, and Telangana.
Mapping behavior patterns to define need-based user segments
Educators varied widely in language, socio-economic background, tech access, and openness to learning, so we grouped them into broad behavioral segments rather than trying to design for a single average user. This balanced scale, impact, and implementation reality, and it directly shaped our rollout and impact strategy and the boundaries of the eventual solution.
Understanding mental models through a cross-platform competitive study
We analyzed 15+ direct and indirect competitors, along with cross-category apps, to surface usage patterns and mental models. The focus was on habit-forming features, nudges, choice architecture, and community engagement, and how educators responded to each. Since we were designing for an audience with largely basic technological skills, this research also shaped how we thought about inducting users progressively, through patterns they already knew.
The key findings
We synthesized attitudinal and behavioral data through collaborative affinity mapping, grouping field notes and quotes with past research to uncover the "why" behind what we were seeing, alongside tech access, state-wise differences in expectations, and how educators wanted to be recognized.
Educators are most motivated when their efforts are viewed as direct contributors to student success, finding both personal and professional fulfillment in visible impact.
Educators' identity is deeply tied to being knowledgeable mentors, shaping their motivation through both internal drive and external expectations.
Educators already engage in self-learning practices based on interests, student needs, or curriculum gaps, but don't relate that behavior to Quest's concept of "self-learning."
With a lack of agency and little recognition for their expertise, educators feel obligated rather than engaged, making them resistant to external training efforts.
Educators' effort levels are shaped by peer expectations and competition, with most institutes following a clear and accepted hierarchy.
Turning findings into opportunities for scalable impact
We synthesized attitudinal and behavioral data through collaborative affinity mapping, grouping field notes and quotes with past research to uncover the "why" behind what we were seeing, alongside tech access, state-wise differences in expectations, and how educators wanted to be recognized.
#1
Attributing value to existing self-learning practices, and providing regular avenues to engage with and build on them.
#2
Recognizing and rewarding educators' expertise, to positively reinforce desired behaviors and inspire others.
#3
Supporting peer engagement, to encourage reflection and cross-sharing of teaching practices.
#4
Visualizing the impact of an educator's efforts on their students' successes and shortcomings.
Collaboratively generating solutions with the Quest Alliance team
During a day-long session with Quest Alliance's leadership and product teams, we presented our findings and used their insights to ideate directly against the four opportunity areas, running multiple rounds across cross-vertical teams to keep a genuinely wide range of perspectives in the room. The session's output was a set of research-backed concepts, refined with Quest's own expertise, ready to be developed into the final solution.
Refining and validating the solution with clients and end-users
We worked closely with the Quest team to prioritize concepts using an Impact-Confidence-Feasibility framework, which surfaced implementation gaps early and secured internal alignment across verticals. We then validated the shortlisted concepts on the ground with 8 end-users. These sessions surfaced what resonated most, identified usability blockers, and clarified which features actually mattered, alongside insights on educators' comfort with self-evaluation, the value they placed on peer interaction, language limitations, and what kind of recognition genuinely felt meaningful to them.
Solution
The new Quest App: enabling reflection-based learning and implementation
The solution took shape as a set of enhancements to Quest Alliance's existing application, built to sustain a continuous cycle of learning and implementation for educators. The core features: goal-setting, progress tracking, and personalized learning pathways, designed to maintain educator agency and create real accountability for ongoing engagement. In the next phase of the project, this concept evolved into a full replacement for the existing Quest App, redesigning the learning experience from the ground up.
Feature #1
Goal-setting through self-evaluation
Focus on giving educators agency and transparency into their own learning journey. A baseline test lets users identify their key strengths and improvement areas, which they use to define learning goals and build a personalized pathway.
Feature #2
Personalised Learning Pathways
Pathways that adapt to each educator's independent context and needs. The app offers actionable recommendations based on a teacher's tech access, infrastructure, and learning environment. Educators set goals, guided by evaluations or personal choice, each tied to a learning path, with progress tracked through milestone-based badges and a progress tracker to sustain motivation and mastery over time.
Feature #3
Community Sharing
For peer support and encouragement. A public, social space among peers where teachers share and document their efforts toward a chosen goal. This peer community gives educators accountability, support, and recognition, directly answering what the research found about how motivation actually works for them.
Expanding key features into a detailed product strategy and plan
We mapped out the requirements and key modules of the new app and identified simplified versions where necessary for ease of implementation. We built an incremental plan to move toward the ideal product, so user testing and feedback could be built into the process throughout rather than saved for the end.
Reflections
Next Steps
This research was followed by a ground-up redesign of the Quest App, iteratively tested with users, co-creating the learning experience and content formats with the Quest Alliance team. I led the NOCT team through that phase.
Read the design phase case study here: [Designing a research-backed learning app for 27,500+ educators]
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