How Skyward Software is Made

1. We hear about a user’s pain points and needs. This could come from the Product Ideas Portal, a user group, a customer call, or an internal expert.
2. We conduct further research through interviews, benchmark surveys, and observations to better understand the user’s experience.
3. We look at all our research and identify the user’s core problem. We create an actionable problem statement and determine what successfully solving this problem will look like.
4. We brainstorm and collaborate on ideas and concepts to solve our user’s problem. We flesh out the best ideas and decide which we want to test with our users.
5. We recruit real users—they are the ones who will be using the software, so their feedback is the most important to us. Depending on the part of the software we’re working on, we could recruit teachers, nurses, principals... whoever uses that part of Skyward most.
6. We test the prototype with these users and get real-time feedback from them. We can then make iterations and improvements based on feedback and do additional research until we are happy with the results.
7. We work with Skyward’s software engineers to implement the new design changes into the software.
8. Once the code is launched, we conduct follow-up surveys and interviews to verify we were successful in solving the user’s problem.

Follow-up resource: Behind the Curtain: The Skyward Development Process