When researchers ask students to test educational technology products, a consistent pattern emerges: Tools that impress adults in demos often fall flat with the students who actually use them. Recent studies show that even well-designed products can frustrate students or create unnecessary mental strain when technical complexity gets in the way of learning. The disconnect means even promising tools aren’t reaching their full potential in real classrooms.
This gap between adult expectations and student experience is exactly what ISTE+ASCD, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the youth research organization In Tandem aim to close through their collaborative work on student usability in edtech.
EdSurge spoke with three leaders from this collaborative effort: Vanessa Zuidema, co-founder and director of customer success at In Tandem; Dr. Medha Tare, senior director of research at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center; and Dr. Brandon Olszewski, senior director of research and innovation at ISTE+ASCD.
“To help clarify what matters most when it comes to student usability, we knew we needed to work with these partners to reach students, check our findings against others in the space and develop guidance for edtech providers,” Olszewski explains. “Sesame has extensive experience designing for young people and balancing high-quality learning with engagement. In Tandem connects young people with companies and organizations that need their voices at the table. ISTE+ASCD sits at the intersection of educational technology, learning design, and curriculum and instruction.”
Ahead of releasing a formal student usability framework later this year, the three organizations shared early findings about what students actually want from educational technology — and what it means for schools and developers.
EdSurge: Why focus specifically on student usability, and what does that mean in practice?
Tare: The field is very good at evaluating edtech from an adult perspective: alignment, evidence, safety, interoperability. But none of those frameworks capture what it’s like to be a kid trying to use a tool in real time.
In our research with students and product developers, we often saw cognitive load issues: students struggle with instructions, navigation or unclear affordances. We saw motivation issues: kids shut down when a feature feels intimidating or frustrating. Many existing evaluations don’t examine how struggling, multilingual or reluctant readers experience the same product quite differently.
Zuidema: While districts, school leaders and teachers all play critical roles, ultimately the student experience determines whether learning actually happens. Yet too often, product development processes overlook the people most affected: students themselves.
How does centering student voice change the way edtech products are designed?
Tare: You can count on young people to surface things adults would never catch. Kids are the experts in fun, not adults! In one case, an AI writing companion talked too much, repeated questions and “felt like a bot” to kids. Students redesigned the personality system to be less chatty, more responsive and more playful, and engagement shot up the next day.
In another case, developers initially assumed a read-aloud feature would help with assessment, but kids were often too anxious or unsure to speak. Student discomfort fundamentally shifted how developers approached assessment supports.
Zuidema: When you center student voice, you learn things about an edtech tool that adults simply can’t see. Testing early ideas with students helps product teams figure out if things like onboarding or screen design actually work before a tool is used in real classrooms. This keeps teams from building features based on adult guesses and saves them from costly rebuilds.
One example is customization. Adults often assume students want lots of choices in how everything looks. But many students say they prefer simple, steady designs and want more control over their learning path instead.
Olszewski: I’m generalizing here, but what we heard is that they don’t care about chatbots, and they don’t want to do anything for school on their phones except check due dates. I think these insights offer edtech providers some solid guidance on how to spend their energy when developing products.
What do students want from edtech?
Olszewski: Students want a clean user interface that feels intuitive, as if it were actually tested by real students. They don’t care about a lot of add-ons, advanced customization, badges and points. Instead, they want clear learning progressions that show them what’s next. They want to see language and scenarios that reflect who they are.
Zuidema: Students want tools that are simple to use, don’t waste time and feel made for how they actually learn. They want tools that let them move at their own pace and get feedback that actually makes sense.
Tare: Students want feedback that feels human and helpful: timely, specific, supportive and aligned to where they are in the process. For example, kids told one writing tool not to give grammar feedback while they were still generating ideas because it felt disruptive and demotivating. They want characters and tools that react to them in joyful, surprising ways. And they want tools that respect their intelligence: kids reject infantilizing features and lean into tools that challenge them while also supporting them.
What does it take to do rigorous, ethical student-centered usability research?
Zuidema: Conducting rigorous research with students starts with creating spaces where young people feel safe enough to be honest. When that trust is in place, they move beyond polite answers and offer the kind of deeper feedback that improves programs and products.
Organizations partner most effectively when they start with a clear sense of what they hope to learn and how they plan to use those insights. When students feel safe and respected, they offer the kind of honest, deeper insight that strengthens the work.
Tare: We recommend genuine youth partnership, not tokenism: Kids need time to build relationships, trained facilitators and multiple sessions to share deeper feedback. And there needs to be a willingness to change course: Product teams need to be ready to iterate, and sometimes to do so fundamentally. Kids are experts! We need to listen.
Olszewski: Young people under 18 rightfully are afforded special protections through Institutional Review Boards. Coordinating with the right organizations that have streamlined that work helps responsible research partners get right to the work of actually collecting data. That’s so helpful when the people we want to learn from don’t yet have a driver’s license!
How should school leaders evaluate edtech through the lens of student usability?
Olszewski: We know that alignment to standards and evidence supporting better student learning outcomes are top of mind — and those priorities can sometimes overshadow other important factors. We believe that products designed for usability, both for teachers and students, are more likely to improve teaching and learning. Our forthcoming student usability framework will provide concrete criteria for evaluating these factors. If your sandbox account of a product offers a jumbled user experience without a clear learning progression, that’s a signal it might not work well in practice.
Tare: Student usability should be given strong consideration. We advise school leaders to ask questions such as: Can students independently navigate the tool? Do multilingual learners and struggling readers experience friction? Does the tool maintain motivation, or diminish it? How does feedback feel to a child: supportive or punitive? This approach helps leaders choose tools that work for the students they actually serve.
Learn more: ISTE+ASCD’s student usability framework will be released later this year. In the meantime, educators and edtech decision-makers can explore ISTE’s Teacher Ready Evaluation Tool and related resources at iste.org/edtech-product-selection.