GIOS | UX Design for Partnering with Schools

What is GIOS?

GIOS is an interactive, AI-powered learning platform designed to help middle schoolers study mathematics and develop critical thinking skills. The platform combines short-format (TikTok style) video lectures with quick, formative tests to ensure students retain and apply new knowledge effectively.

GIOS aims to expand its reach by transitioning from selling individual student programs to securing partnerships with entire schools.

The Challenge?

1. Low brand visibility — The platform was not being discovered organically by its target audience. All engagement relied solely on outbound efforts from the sales team.

2. Unclear target audience — At the project's start, the company lacked clear insight into who their primary decision-makers or users were, making it difficult to craft focused messaging or outreach.

The Business Goal?

Interview Approach

I began by interviewing GIOS’s Director of Sales and Business Strategy to understand how the platform is introduced to schools. This revealed three key stakeholders in the adoption process:

Teachers emerged as the most critical decision-makers — their confidence in GIOS heavily influences both parents and administrators. As such, understanding their challenges, needs, and motivations became central to our UX approach.

What we learned from our users

To dig deeper, I conducted 5 interviews with middle school math teachers. I focused on their experience with adopting GIOS and their broader teaching context.

Understanding Our Key User: The Middle School Teacher

I used the insights from the interviews to create a user persona that represents the common challenges, goals, and motivations of my target audience. 

Finding where we can deliver the most impact

Following the user journey analysis, we reframed key insights into How Might We (HMW) questions to guide our ideation and focus our design solutions around user needs and business goals.

Turning Insights Into Action

⚠️ Problem #1 – The website did not provide a clear or accessible way for potential clients to reach out, making it difficult to shift from sales-led outreach to inbound interest from schools and teachers.

✅ Solution #1 – Added a contact form in the hero section and clear CTAs on buttons

✅ Solution #2 – Added the logo of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine as a mark of trust and approval, along with an interactive sticky “Free Demo” button for easy access (as well as replaced the word "TikTok" with short lessons).

✅ Solution #3 – Added a step-by-step explanation showing teachers exactly how to join GIOS and what happens next, making the process feel simple, transparent, and approachable.

⚠️ Problem #2 – Teachers needed to see GIOS as a supportive, easy-to-adopt teaching aid rather than just another learning tool.

✅ Solution #1 – Clearly acknowledged teachers’ challenges to build empathy and demonstrated that GIOS understands their reality.

✅ Solution #2 – Highlight GIOS benefits in a clear, concise way to communicate its true value as a teaching aid.

✅ Solution #3 –Communicated that most teachers feel comfortable using GIOS within two weeks and highlighted webinars as ongoing support.

✅ Solution #4 – Displayed the name and photo of the support manager to build trust and reassure teachers that help is always available (this also drives more contact form submissions!).

⚠️ Problem #3 – Pricing varies depending on school size and student count, making it difficult to list upfront.

✅ Solution – Communicated pricing effectively by:

• Comparing annual cost to just two private tutoring sessions per student

• Adding a “Find out the cost for my class” button leading to the sales form

• Explaining why pricing is customized for each school

Full landing page here

What I Would Do Differently

If I had more time or was working on this project long-term, I would:

• Conduct user interviews with teachers who signed up to uncover further pain points and iterate on onboarding and long-term retention flows.

• Revisit the bigger ideas explored initially, such as:
  • Adding a short interactive demo on the landing page so teachers can instantly try GIOS
  • Displaying a pricing table with average costs by region or school type to give a general sense of expected pricing
  • Creating a pricing calculator where users can enter their district, number of classes, and students per class to get an estimate

• Expand beyond just the B2B schools page to rethink the entire website ecosystem, ensuring consistent UX across teacher, parent, and student touchpoints.