Integrating IEPs into Google Classroom
CONTEXT
What is Google Classroom?
Google Classroom is an online platform designed to help teachers manage and organize assignments, communications, and feedback in a digital space. It allows students to submit assignments, participate in discussions, and track their progress. The platform integrates with other Google tools, such as Docs and Drive, to streamline collaboration and enhance learning experiences.
ROLE
Product Designer
TEAM
2 UX Researchers
1 Product Designer
TIMELINE
January 2025 - May 2025
TOOLS
Figma
Canva
Google Workspace
THE PROBLEM
No student left behind!
Google Classroom, while widely used for digital learning, lacks built-in support for Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Teachers are left without integrated tools for custom lesson plans, accessibility features, or progress tracking, making it difficult to deliver personalized learning experiences for students with disabilities.
Task: Design a solution to integrate IEPs into Google Classroom, enabling teachers to manage student accommodations and create inclusive, personalized learning experiences more easily.
USER RESEARCH
How are educators currently managing students with IEPs?
We wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges educators face when implementing IEP accommodations in Google Classroom. To explore this, we conducted a site visit to P.S. 217 Roosevelt Island School, interviewed four K-12 Initiative educator, and explored online forums such as r/teachers and r/specialed. Through this process, we uncovered key insights into teachers’ struggles and workstyles.
IEPs are often poorly written and fail to accurately reflect student needs, causing teachers to struggle with their complexity.
Educators want effective tools to track IEP goals and collect data on student progress.
Classrooms often include a mix of IEP and non-IEP students, with rotating teachers and paraprofessionals .
We used our insights to move beyond identifying problems and began shaping actionable, user-friendly solutions for educators. Through an affinity mapping exercise, we organized key pain points into themes, helping us identify three priority areas to focus on in our design:
📄
IEP Overview: Teachers can view student IEPs summaries and apply accommodations.
📊
Progress Tracking: Teachers can track grades and monitor progress with AI insights.
🧩
Assignment Integration: IEP settings are applied directly to assignments for efficient accommodation management of different groups of students.
While some IEP goals require in-person strategies, we focused on challenges that could be realistically addressed through a digital platform like Google Classroom and explored solutions tailored to those needs.
IDEATION
Exploring key features to address the complexities of IEP integration
I created low-fidelity sketches and medium-fidelity wireframes to consolidate our potential ideas and envision the core features of the application. These included the Student Summary Page, a Goals Page, and an Assignment Integration Page.
I also followed Google Classroom's branding guidelines to ensure consistency and seamless integration with its existing design. This includes adhering to its color scheme, typography, and UI components to maintain a familiar and user-friendly experience. By aligning with Google's established design principles, I aim to enhance usability while ensuring our features feel like a natural extension of the platform.
ITERATIONS
Designing with the goal of streamlining IEP information
Moving from wireframes to prototypes, the overall format stayed consistent, but a key change was the placement of IEP information. Initially, IEP details were split across multiple sections (The summary feature was under "People", the goals feature was under "Grades", and Additional information was in a new “IEP Report” tab.)
During prototyping, I realized this fragmented approach could be confusing. To streamline the experience, I consolidated all IEP-related information under each student’s profile. Now, whether accessed through People or Grades, instructors are directed to a unified student profile with a mini navigation bar for quick access to IEP summaries, goals, and progress.
Goals Iterations
When iterating on how I wanted the goals to be displayed, I focused on making the design easy to understand and intuitive to grasp at a glance. I decided to go with Option 3 because it provides a clear hierarchy and natural flow. By placing the goal name and description above the progress bar, users can first understand the purpose and context before interpreting progress. This layout makes the information easier to scan and ensures the bar feels meaningful rather than isolated.
Option 1: Minimal View
✅
Easy to scan fast
❌
Can't see the specifics of the goal since theres no description.
Option 1: Minimal View
✅
Description provides context for what the progress bar represents.
❌
Description feels cluttered and hard to read.
❌
Progress bar is horizontally shrunk to have space for description.
Option 3: Context-First Layout
✅
Clear hierarchy, as users will read the context first before interpreting the bar.
✅
Cleaner visual flow.
✅
No space competition
Assignments Iteration
When iterating on how I wanted the assignments to be displayed, I focused on making the process of applying sepcialized accommodations effortless for instructors. I ended up going with Option 2, because it allows me to present detailed IEP settings without cluttering the main assignment creation page. It’s a more scalable solution that supports multiple types of settings, offering greater clarity and control than a simple checkbox.
Option 1: Check-box
✅
Simple Toggle
⚠️
It takes up minimal space until there are more options
Option 2: Collapsible Button
✅
The user can see all the available specialized settings at a glance once they expand the section, which could be more intuitive than a single toggle.
✅
More scalable
❌
It adds an extra click for the user to get to the settings.
FINAL DESIGNS
IEP Overview Summaries
Goals Tracking and Progress
Assignment Integration
CONCLUSION & TAKEAWAYS
Turning Research into Practical, Impactful Design
Through this project, I learned how to translate user research into actionable design decisions that directly address real classroom challenges. By closely understanding educators’ workflows and pain points, I was able to prioritize simplicity and clarity, reducing cognitive load for teachers who are often managing multiple responsibilities at once. I also developed strategies for thoughtfully integrating new features into existing platforms, ensuring that enhancements feel seamless rather than disruptive. Overall, this experience strengthened my ability to design solutions that are not only user-centered, but also practical and adaptable to real-world educational environments.