Backyard Brains
Making Neuroscience Education Fun & Accessible to All
Client Project
Education Technology
Product Design
User Research
Client
Backyard Brains
Duration
Jan 2025 - April 2025
Role
UX Designer
Team
4 UX Designer
OVERVIEW
Backyard Brains: Neuroscience For All!
Backyard Brains is an Ann Arbor EdTech startup dedicated to making neuroscience accessible to K-12 students by simplifying complex concepts through hands-on tools. These tools empower students to explore neural activity and brain functions interactively, fostering curiosity and understanding.
DEMOCRATIZING NERUROSCIENCE FOR ALL
Backyard Brains create hands-on tools, engaging workshops, and innovative kits that enable learners of all ages to become neuroscientists!
The brain is our soul… our consciousness… it contains all of our hopes, dreams, and desires. It is our most important organ, yet how it works is still a mystery for most people. This is largely because tools to understand the brain have been relegated to only large university laboratories, inaccessible to the layperson.
OVERVIEW
The Problem
As Backyard Brains continued to develop new tools, their ecosystem spread across multiple standalone apps—each with different interfaces and interaction patterns.
Human SpikerBot
Neuron SpikerBox
NeuroRobot
Fragmented Experience
with Multiple Applications
1.
Increase cognitive load
Students spend more time relearning different interfaces and figuring out how each tool works, leaving less time to actually engage with the neuroscience concepts they’re meant to explore.
Lost Instructional Time
Each app has its own setup steps and workflows, forcing teachers to switch platforms, troubleshoot connections, and re-explain new interfaces — all within a tight 45–55 minute class period.
2.
3.
Financial and logistical challenges for classroom adoption
Schools must purchase and support multiple separate devices and apps, which raises financial and logistical burdens and makes it harder for teachers and districts to justify adopting the full BYB ecosystem.
The fragmentation between applications creates barriers for teachers and student, such as
OVERVIEW
Project Goal
Business Goal
Unify tools into one scalable, maintainable app
User Goal
Run experiments easily through one simple interface
User Research
1
PROBLEM DISCOVERY
Our goal was to uncover how the current interfaces affected learning, teaching, and engagement
USER RESEARCH
Understanding Where Users Struggle
USER RESEARCH
Key Insights
After conducting user interviews and user survey and analyzing the gathered data, we were able to categorize the insights into 4 main categories
46 raw data points from surveys and interviews
USER RESEARCH
What We Learned About Learning
User research helped us gain deeper understanding of learning process in scientific domains. These insights made it clear that our design work needed to make the science feel tangible, predictable, and cognitively accessible.
What Helps Students Learn Neuroscience
Hands on learning tools
Consistent patterns
Experiment flows match how science labs are actually taught
What Gets in the Way of Learning
Fragmented apps
Unclear Feedback
Hard to find key actions
Students assume they made mistakes when the UI is unclear
What do Classroom Need to Support Learning in Scale
Faster, predictable setup
Seamless experiment transitions
Clear guidance for student independence
Students eager to learn neuroscience need a unified, consistent experience that keeps their learning flow uninterrupted
POST RESEARCH PROBLEM STATEMENT
USER RESEARCH
Persona
Using insights from our primary research, we developed 2 detailed persona and journey maps that represent our target audiences.
TARGET AUDIENCE #1: TEACHER
TARGET AUDIENCE #2: STUDENTS
How might we create a unified web application that consolidates Backyard Brains' tools, streamlines the user experience, and enhances the educational value for both students and teachers ?
Design Ideation
2
TURING INSIGHTS INTO IDEAS
Translated research insights into opportunities, imagining new ways to create a unified and supportive learning experience
FLOWS & WIREFRAMES
Sketching out solutions
We recreated various user scenarios to explore all possible flows for key features before finalizing them. These flows were then turned into low-fi prototypes for the first round of testing.
Beyond unifying the app ecosystem, we sketched out improved the SpikerBox and NeuroRobot designs with clearer feedback, streamlined controls, and learning-focused guidance. The redesign help students understand experiments more intuitively and stay engaged throughout the learning flow.
FLOWS & WIREFRAMES
Wireframing the Core Flows
Once the sketches revealed our direction, we translated them into a user flow to visualize how students would move through the unified learning experience
STYLE GUIDE
Designing With the Backyard Brains Personality
Backyard Brains has a strong visual identity rooted in playful, approachable branding and accessible science communication. Style guide was developed bring that personality into the unified app.
ITERATION
Design Iteration
We took into account feedback from our client, course instructors and insights from usability testing to refine the interface to the final design.
Final Solution
3
UNIFIED LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Translated research insights into opportunities, imagining new ways to create a unified and supportive learning experience
Drag the slider to compare the before and after
SpikerBox & Neurorobot Redesign
NeuroRobot
Spike Recorder
Home Page
Unified starting point where learners can choose experiments, access lesson plans, and see all tools in one organized place
Lesson Plans
Integrated lesson guides with experiments support seamless transitions for both teachers and students
Spike Recorder
A clearer SpikeRecorder interface with improved spike visuals, easier controls, and integrated notes for better understanding
NeuroRobot
Neurorobot interface with clearer feedback, integrated notes, and instructions for a smoother, more intuitive experiment flow
About Us
Showcases Backyard Brains’ mission and story with FAQ
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