Let us not dwell anymore on how much incalculable trouble the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us in the last two years. It’s out there in front of everybody and cemented in the psyche of human beings of all social strata. As much as that is the case, the same holds true for their children. The young guns of each family have been quick to adapt to the stay-at-home diktat. Although a partial opening of schools is being given serious (and hazardous) thought by federal agencies, its realization appears a distant reality.
Because of the frequent lockdowns globally, classroom-based education has been going through an existential crisis with the interruption becoming indefinite in scope. Online tutoring and homeschooling are being tossed as serious alternatives for face-to-face teaching. These past few years have witnessed an exponential increase in queries for developing online apps for tutoring businesses.
If there is an educational sector that stands to benefit from the resurging interest in online tutoring, then that is the K-12 cohort. In 2019, the tutoring market associated with this sector was worth $600 million. It is projected from 2019 – 2023, tutoring for this section would expand at a rate of 23% CAGR.
According to the latest forecast, it is predicted that the private tutoring market has the potential to grow by $8.37B by 2026 at a CAGR of 7.61%.
So, if you’re someone who has already started with on demand tutor app development or are looking to get your on demand tutor app developed, then this blog is just for you. We will be discussing some of the keys On Demand Tutor App features for the post-Covid era.
Must-have Features of On-demand Tutor App
The rise of apps in the online education industry has been nudged forward by parental insecurity for their children to miss out on timely education. Community schools are far from standardizing delivery for online tutoring services, due to which the private tutoring market is blossoming. A standalone, private platform for tutors is faster to develop than an institution-centric application.
But saying this does not take away the feature sets of either category. Whether it is a school teacher at the other end or a privately hired tutor on demand, the following features in an on-demand tutoring app would better the overall experience for both the master and the apprentice.
1. Single Step Sign-in
You want a swarm of people to visit, download and use the application. To ensure that, you need to get rid of the long-format sign-up forms as they are a thing of the past. First-time users may not entirely want to stick around for the long haul and you need to capture their attention in that limited time period by making it easier for them to get into the app with quick and easy signups. Facebook or a Google sign-up option is the thing nowadays that instantly gratifies the user and swiftly pushes them over to discover the app content. If you want to keep it formal, then asking for an email, name, age, and mobile number should suffice, but not more than that. It’s better not to complicate matters by making users create brain-drain usernames.
2. Smart Search Option
Congratulations, Elvis has entered the building. The first thing a user would do is search for relevant learning material. So how do you optimize this critical step? Implement a smart search that sniffs keywords out instantly. Run-of-the-mill educational app developers miss out on basic functionalities that users expect. The scope of user search is limited. Hence, on-demand app developers should target all the short-tail/long-tail keywords an average user might type in a frenzy, part of your algorithm. Make sure to incorporate misspelled keywords in your algorithm too. Ease usability by enabling an auto-suggest feature in the search box to make it easier for them to click and be directed to the relevant content section.
3. Best Courses Updates
Displaying the top courses on the homepage gives the student a broad idea of what the app is best suited to and the learning habits of people. Whatever you propose to educate students in, make sure you have a diversified, value-adding course list. Udemy is one example. See how they boast their content repository and total users. The sheer size of the numbers would make anyone interested.
4. Personal Dashboard
On-demand mobile app development is all about reinventing the wheel. How can you make something as basic as a personal dashboard stand out? Introduce a recommended section based on the purchase history of users. Push your IT team to introduce a widget for 3 types of recommendations during the course of an on-demand tutor app development:
- Related courses as per user browsing history
- Related courses as per purchase history
- Courses purchased together
Alongside this, the dashboard should offer a progress meter sharing learning statistics for each individual.
5. Learn Where You Leave
The Save Shopping Cart option where you save the stage of the order and return later to make the payment is a hit amongst the users. The same principle has been extended to education development. Learners must have the option to pick their online, recorded lecture up right where they left off. It sounds easy but requires high-level technological expertise, the kind that Appinventiv has proven time and again to possess. Also, recorded sessions should be lined up to auto-play once a video ends.
6. Offline Access
All the leading tutors-on-demand apps have this feature. No matter the nature of the content displayed, digital businesses are receptive to the fact that internet access is not the same in all places. To give an example, Netflix and Youtube allow you to download videos. Similarly, with Hike, you can chat in offline mode. This feature in your tutoring apps empowers users access to download and carry on their lessons as they see fit.
7. Interactive Assessments
Quizzes are a fun way to conclude and test the retaining capacity of students. An online tutor application would be no better than an e-book if there is no 2-way interaction with consumers. The tests, at the same time, shouldn’t be boring. This is where gamification comes into play. In fact, take it a step forward and introduce a test series for each chapter. For instance, students often return to a tutorial to repeat it. Provided your app has a revision tracker, students can be encouraged to take on new questions and see if they have actually improved.
8. Session Transcripts & Notes
Whether it is a live online class or an offline one, session transcripts are always handy. That should further be augmented with a “Notes” section that students can download for future reference. Tutor app development should focus on minimizing student efforts and helping them focus intently on the lesson at hand. In-app features should encourage direct interaction between trainers and the batches which brings us to our next point.
9. Instructor Log
The complexity of this feature is linked to the nature of tutoring services. For instance, if the app allows live instructor-student interaction, the instructor can have an open discussion on a topic. They can post MCQ tests in the middle of the class to measure attentiveness and rate students who’d be automatically graded thanks to pre-feed answers in the app. This rating can be synced with the personal dashboard of students and share pointers with guardians, just like a school report card.
10. Personalized Growth Plans
The point of reaching each student via smart devices is to identify and recommend a roadmap tuned to each student’s aptitude. Continuing from the last point, instructors can create a customized learning path having developed an understanding of each student’s strengths and weaknesses from the log. With the content bank ready to support the after-class needs of a student, they would know exactly what to study and what to derail for the future in turn optimizing their time and learning.
11. Q&A Pin-up Board
Not everyone has the habit of jotting down doubts to confirm with online trainers. What if it’s a weekend? Would you want to be stuck with your query for so long? Most of us would appreciate it if someone would attend to us sooner than later. Therefore, tutoring services planning to launch operations should make room for an in-app section where students can post their doubts and instructors can reply within a stipulated time.
12. Notifications
With physical space, we know when to gear up and leave for classes. But what about e-tuition? That’s why timing reminders are critical. Send alerts to get students hitched to their screens or if they left a recorded session mid-way to come back and complete it. Notifications must be relevant to the user treating them as people and not mere customers.
13. Group Mode
Discipline is hard, isn’t it? But it becomes easier to do something hard when others are supportive of us. Similarly, studying in groups makes the experience worthwhile. If students can collaborate and learn a particular subject together, nothing like it. They could help each other understand the topic through live interaction or mutually pose questions to an instructor. Having a kaleidoscoping experience as an education app development company we know exactly how to make this feature stand out with audio/visual effects and multi-format content sharing.
14. Multi-Device Compatibility
You can never control which device the user would experiment with, or be forced to run your app on due to which it has to be accessible across all mainstream devices and operating systems. As an on-demand app development company, another trend we see surfacing is Progressive Web Apps.
Tutor app development costs could be a little expensive as you continue adding features to the design. This concept of PWAs is picking up fast among budget-bound vendors.
15. Stream on TV
The sheer exclusivity of this feature would place your app in a league of its own. Imagine learning from a tutor on demand, with the entire session being broadcast on your television. It’s like watching a sitcom with your parents. Streaming takes the unwarranted seriousness out of the picture and makes you inadvertently enjoy it.
16. In-App Chat Function
Your on-demand tutoring app must integrate an in-app chat function that enables students to raise questions and ask them in the chatbox. The in-app chat function will increase personalization and helps students to build a healthy relationship with the tutor. Adding on, they can clear their queries on the chat without connecting with the tutor through any other medium.
