2025
Cogniphant
Designing an Inclusive
Multi-Role Platform for
SEND Support
Project Overview
Project Overview
Background
Background
Cogniphant is an early-stage platform used in UK schools to support students with SEND needs. At the time of the project, it consisted of only two disconnected features with no dashboards, role-based workflows or collaboration tools to connect SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Cogniphant is an early-stage platform used in UK schools to support students with SEND needs. At the time of the project, it consisted of only two disconnected features with no dashboards, role-based workflows or collaboration tools to connect SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Challenge
Challenge
Build a structured, multi-role platform from the ground up, reducing admin burden, improving collaboration, and giving each stakeholder the clarity they need to support students effectively.
Build a structured, multi-role platform from the ground up, reducing admin burden, improving collaboration, and giving each stakeholder the clarity they need to support students effectively.
Objective
Objective
Replace fragmented, paper-based SENCO workflows with a centralised
digital system
Replace fragmented, paper-based SENCO workflows with a centralised
digital system
Design role-specific experiences for SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Each tailored to their context
Design role-specific experiences for SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Each tailored to their context
Scale the platform beyond ADHD to support all SEND students across
UK schools
Scale the platform beyond ADHD to support all SEND students across
UK schools
Early ADHD detection for schools
Early ADHD detection for schools
About Cogniphant
About Cogniphant
Early ADHD detection for schools
About Cogniphant
Project Overview
Project Overview
Background
Cogniphant is an early-stage platform used in UK schools to support students with SEND needs. At the time of the project, it consisted of only two disconnected features with no dashboards, role-based workflows or collaboration tools to connect SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Challenge
Build a structured, multi-role platform from the ground up, reducing admin burden, improving collaboration, and giving each stakeholder the clarity they need to support students effectively.
Objective
Replace fragmented, paper-based SENCO workflows with a centralised
digital system
Design role-specific experiences for SENCOs, teachers, and parents.
Each tailored to their context
Scale the platform beyond ADHD to support all SEND students across
UK schools
Context
Context
Starting Point
Starting Point
Starting Point
The existing Cogniphant platform had two disconnected features and no structure to support real school workflows.
The existing Cogniphant platform had two disconnected features and no structure to support real school workflows.
The existing Cogniphant platform had two disconnected features and no structure to support real school workflows.
Admin Overload
80–90% of SENCO time
80–90% of SENCO time
80–90% of SENCO time
Spent managing documentation across paper, email, and spreadsheets
Workflow Gaps
0 structured workflows
0 structured workflows
No dashboards, no documentation flow, no way to track a student's history
Broken Collaboration
Communication entirely offline
Communication entirely offline
No shared system between roles - coordination happened through email and word of mouth
Limited Features
2 Disconnected Features
2 Disconnected Features
Only student assessment and game dashboard features on the platform
My Role & Key Design Decision
My Role & Key Design Decision
The existing Cogniphant platform had two disconnected features and no structure to support real school workflows.
The existing Cogniphant platform had two disconnected features and no structure to support real school workflows.
Initial Pemise
Initial Pemise
Objective
Objective
User's perspective
User's perspective
Design for reduced cognitive load and small, manageable actions
Design for reduced cognitive load and small, manageable actions
Emotional
Emotional
Tone and hierarchy should feel supportive, not corrective
Tone and hierarchy should feel supportive, not corrective
Initial Pemise
Objective
User's perspective
Design for reduced cognitive load and small, manageable actions
Emotional
Consistency over feature richness. Tone and hierarchy should feel supportive, not corrective
Reviewing Existing Data and Insights
Reviewing Existing Data and Insights
We started by reviewing everything our project partner shared with us which includes previous SENCO interview insights, the current UK school SEND screening process, and the existing Cogniphant platform. This helped us understand the real gaps before jumping into our own research.
We started by reviewing everything our project partner shared with us which includes previous SENCO interview insights, the current UK school SEND screening process, and the existing Cogniphant platform. This helped us understand the real gaps before jumping into our own research.
Previous Interview Insights
Previous Interview Insights
Previous Interview Insights
Our project partner had already conducted interviews with SENCOs. I reviewed these to extract recurring pain points before running our own sessions.
What I saw:
SENCOs were managing student documentation across paper, email, and spreadsheets simultaneously
There was no shared system between roles, coordination happened through word of mouth
The platform wasn't reducing admin burden, it was adding to it
Stakeholder & Customer Inputs
To complement the data, I spoke with the PM and Customer Success team to understand recurring learner concerns.
Whar I learned:
Learners felt overwhelmed by too many options.
Users struggled to identify what was relevant to them.
Admin-promoted content was often missed.
Feature awareness was lower than expected.
The homepage was functioning more as a content
catalogue than a guided entry point.
UK School SEND Screening Process
Stakeholder &
Customer Inputs
I reviewed the current screening workflow that take place in the UK schools to get a better understanding.
Key Insights:
Screening involves multiple steps across different roles: teacher observation, SENCO review, parent consent
Heuristic Review
I conducted a structured evaluation of the existing homepage focusing on hierarchy, clarity, and cognitive load.
Observations:
Multiple modules competing for attention.
Weak visual priority between sections.
Inconsistent spacing and density across modules.
Lack of strong directional cues for “next action”.
Key Insight:
The issue was not lack of content, it was lack of prioritisation and guidance.
Heuristic Evaluation
I walked through the existing platform, a game assessment tool and a teacher questionnaire, against real school workflows. What I found -
No role separation, all three user types saw the same view
The two features had no connective workflow between them
Nothing guided users on what to do before or after each task
These findings helped us map the core usability gaps and shaped our early direction before moving into user interviews and redesign.
User Interview
I conducted remote interviews with 2 SENCOs over video call. Each session ran for approximately 45 minutes and followed a semi-structured format, giving us enough consistency to compare responses while leaving room for the conversation to go deeper where needed.
Sessions were recorded with participant consent and key insights were captured through collaborative notes during synthesis.
We went in with three focus areas:
How SENCOs currently manage student documentation and screening
How teachers and SENCOs communicate about student needs
How parents stay informed and involved in the process
Insight we got:
SENCOs need a system that centralizes documentation and progress tracking
Teachers value quick, classroom-friendly ways to log assessments
Parents want simple, transparent access to their child’s status
The platform must reduce cognitive and administrative load, not add to it
Competitive Inspiration
To identify opportunities for a more effective multi-role support system, we analyzed four key tools used across ADHD assessment and SEN support. Comparing their strengths and limitations helped us understand where Cogniphant could differentiate, particularly around school-wide collaboration, documentation workflows, and parent engagement.
These insights helped inform Cogniphant’s UI patterns, reporting structure, and dashboard layouts.
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation
We began by conducting a heuristic evaluation of Cogniphant’s existing platform to understand where users, especially SENCOs and teacher were struggling.
We began by conducting a heuristic evaluation of Cogniphant’s existing platform to understand where users, especially SENCOs and teacher were struggling.
I walked through the existing platform, a game assessment tool and a teacher questionnaire, against real school workflows. What I found -
Our evaluation of the existing tool surfaced core usability issues:
Our evaluation of the existing tool surfaced core usability issues:
No separation between roles ❗️
No separation between roles ❗️
Confusing navigation ❗️
Confusing navigation ❗️
Lack of continuity between assessment and documentation ❗️
Lack of continuity between assessment and documentation ❗️
No clear place to track a student’s history ❗️
No clear place to track a student’s history ❗️
Disconnected features that didn’t support real workflows ❗️
Disconnected features that didn’t support real workflows ❗️
These findings helped us map the core usability gaps and shaped our early direction before moving into user interviews and redesign.
These findings helped us map the core usability gaps and shaped our early direction before moving into user interviews and redesign.
No role separation, all three user types saw the same view
The two features had no connective workflow between them
Nothing guided users on what to do before or after each task
User Interview
User Interview
User Interview
To gather grounded insights, we conducted interviews with two SENCOs managing extensive SEND caseloads and one parent actively involved in SEN support processes. Additionally, we reviewed previous interview data provided by our project partner to further improve our understanding.
To gather grounded insights, we conducted interviews with two SENCOs managing extensive SEND caseloads and one parent actively involved in SEN support processes. Additionally, we reviewed previous interview data provided by our project partner to further improve our understanding.
What we learned:
What we learned:
✅ SENCOs need a system that centralizes documentation and progress tracking
✅ SENCOs need a system that centralizes documentation and progress tracking
✅ SENCOs need a system that centralizes documentation and progress
tracking
✅ Teachers value quick, classroom-friendly ways to log assessments
✅ Teachers value quick, classroom-friendly ways to log assessments
✅ Teachers value quick, classroom-friendly ways to log assessments
✅ Parents want simple, transparent access to their child’s status
✅ Parents want simple, transparent access to their child’s status
✅ Parents want simple, transparent access to their child’s status
✅ The platform must reduce cognitive and administrative load, not
add to it
✅ The platform must reduce cognitive and administrative load, not
add to it
✅ The platform must reduce cognitive and administrative load, not
add to it
3. Competitive Inspiration
3. Competitive Inspiration
3. Competitive Inspiration
To identify opportunities for a more effective multi-role support system, we analyzed four key tools used across ADHD assessment and SEN support. Comparing their strengths and limitations helped us understand where Cogniphant could differentiate, particularly around school-wide collaboration, documentation workflows, and parent engagement. This analysis grounded our design decisions in real market gaps rather than assumptions.
To identify opportunities for a more effective multi-role support system, we analyzed four key tools used across ADHD assessment and SEN support. Comparing their strengths and limitations helped us understand where Cogniphant could differentiate, particularly around school-wide collaboration, documentation workflows, and parent engagement. This analysis grounded our design decisions in real market gaps rather than assumptions.
To identify opportunities for a more effective multi-role support system, we analyzed four key tools used across ADHD assessment and SEN support. Comparing their strengths and limitations helped us understand where Cogniphant could differentiate, particularly around school-wide collaboration, documentation workflows, and parent engagement. This analysis grounded our design decisions in real market gaps rather than assumptions.
Through this analysis, we learned:
Through this analysis, we learned:
How assessments are structured
How assessments are structured
How progress is displayed over time
How progress is displayed over time
How parent access and communication are handled
How parent access and communication are handled
How role-based systems organize tasks
How role-based systems organize tasks
These insights helped inform Cogniphant’s UI patterns, reporting structure, and dashboard layouts.
These insights helped inform Cogniphant’s UI patterns, reporting structure, and dashboard layouts.
Previous Interview Insights
Previous Interview Insights
Our project partner had already conducted interviews with SENCOs. I reviewed these to extract recurring pain points before running our own sessions.
What I saw:
SENCOs were managing student documentation across paper, email, and spreadsheets simultaneously
There was no shared system between roles, coordination happened through word of mouth
The platform wasn't reducing admin burden, it was adding to it
UK School SEND Screening Process
Stakeholder &
Customer Inputs
I reviewed the current screening workflow that take place in the UK schools to get a better understanding.
Key Insights:
Screening involves multiple steps across different roles: teacher observation, SENCO review, parent consent
Ideation & Opportunity Mapping
Ideation & Opportunity Mapping
Our research clarified the real problems across SENCO, teacher, and parent journeys. Before jumping into structure or UI, we transformed these insights into opportunity areas that would guide our ideation.
Our research clarified the real problems across SENCO, teacher, and parent journeys. Before jumping into structure or UI, we transformed these insights into opportunity areas that would guide our ideation.
Shaping Opportunity Areas
We grouped all pain points and insights into thematic opportunity clusters such as:
Simplifying documentation
Improving classroom assessment workflows
Increasing parent visibility
Centralizing communication
Scaling across different SEND needs
These clusters helped us focus on the platform’s most impactful areas.
How Might We (HMW) Exploration
To translate these opportunity areas into actionable directions, we ran a short How Might We exercise. This reframed problems into possibilities and helped align the team on what the platform should enable for each role.
Information Architecture (IA)
The ideation themes guided us toward defining the platform’s information architecture. This ensured we built workflows that matched each role’s responsibilities and reduced unnecessary complexity.
Once IA was clear, we translated it into low-fidelity wireframes to validate navigation, task flows, and information grouping.
Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes were developed to validate layout decisions and core workflows early on. These helped define task flows such as student documentation, screening updates, parent messaging, and progress tracking.
Before moving to high fidelity, we ran a structured walkthrough of the wireframes with our project partner and team.
We used dot voting to collectively prioritise which flows and layout decisions were working and which needed revisiting, making sure we were aligned on direction before investing in visual design.
Shaping Opportunity Areas
Shaping Opportunity Areas
Shaping Opportunity Areas
We grouped all pain points and insights into thematic opportunity clusters such as:
We grouped all pain points and insights into thematic opportunity clusters such as:
Simplifying documentation
Simplifying documentation
Simplifying documentation
Improving classroom assessment workflows
Improving classroom assessment workflows
Improving classroom assessment workflows
Increasing parent visibility
Increasing parent visibility
Increasing parent visibility
Centralizing communication
Centralizing communication
Centralizing communication
Scaling across different SEND needs
Scaling across different SEND needs
Scaling across different SEND needs
These clusters helped us focus on the platform’s most impactful areas.
These clusters helped us focus on the platform’s most impactful areas.
These clusters helped us focus on the platform’s most impactful areas.
These clusters helped us focus on the platform’s most impactful areas.
How Might We (HMW) Exploration
How Might We (HMW) Exploration
How Might We (HMW) Exploration
To translate these opportunity areas into actionable directions, we ran a short How Might We exercise. This reframed problems into possibilities and helped align the team on what the platform should enable for each role.
To translate these opportunity areas into actionable directions, we ran a short How Might We exercise. This reframed problems into possibilities and helped align the team on what the platform should enable for each role.
Information Architecture (IA)
Information Architecture (IA)
Information Architecture (IA)
The ideation themes guided us toward defining the platform’s information architecture. This ensured we built workflows that matched each role’s responsibilities and reduced unnecessary complexity.
The IA maps the core tasks and responsibilities for SENCOs, teachers, and parents. It establishes a clear navigational structure that reduces cognitive overload and ensures role-specific clarity.
The ideation themes guided us toward defining the platform’s information architecture. This ensured we built workflows that matched each role’s responsibilities and reduced unnecessary complexity.
The IA maps the core tasks and responsibilities for SENCOs, teachers, and parents. It establishes a clear navigational structure that reduces cognitive overload and ensures role-specific clarity.
Once IA was clear, we translated it into low-fidelity wireframes to validate navigation, task flows, and information grouping.
Once IA was clear, we translated it into low-fidelity wireframes to validate navigation, task flows, and information grouping.
Wireframes
Wireframes
Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes were developed to validate layout decisions and core workflows early on. These helped define task flows such as student documentation, screening updates, parent messaging, and progress tracking.
Low-fidelity wireframes were developed to validate layout decisions and core workflows early on. These helped define task flows such as student documentation, screening updates, parent messaging, and progress tracking.
High-Fidelity Design
The final UI includes complete dashboards for SENCO and teacher roles, along with a responsive mobile-first experience for parents.
Teacher Workspace
Designed for speed and clarity during class:
Screening
Game assessments
Notes
Quick updates
SENCO Dashboard
A centralized workspace for:
Student management
Documentation
Progress indicators
Assessment summaries
Parent Experience (Web + Mobile)
Parent's get easy access to:
A progress timeline of their child
Child Reports
Consent tasks
Messaging access
Prototype
High-Fidelity Design
High-Fidelity Design
High-Fidelity Design
A clickable prototype was created to simulate the cross-role journeys, allowing stakeholders to walk through onboarding, documentation, screening updates, parent interactions, and student progress tracking. This became a key asset during stakeholder reviews.
Once the flows were validated, we refined everything into high-fidelity designs with clear hierarchy, accessibility considerations, and consistent visual patterns across roles.
The final UI includes complete dashboards for SENCO and teacher roles, along with a responsive mobile-first experience for parents.
Once the flows were validated, we refined everything into high-fidelity designs with clear hierarchy, accessibility considerations, and consistent visual patterns across roles.
The final UI includes complete dashboards for SENCO and teacher roles, along with a responsive mobile-first experience for parents.
Teacher Workspace
Teacher Workspace
Teacher Workspace
Designed for speed and clarity during class:
Designed for speed and clarity during class:
Screening
Screening
Game assessments
Game assessments
Notes
Notes
Quick updates
Quick updates
SENCO Dashboard
SENCO Dashboard
SENCO Dashboard
A centralized workspace for:
A centralized workspace for:
Student management
Student management
Documentation
Documentation
Progress indicators
Progress indicators
Assessment summaries
Assessment summaries
Communication history
Communication history
Parent Experience (Web + Mobile)
Parent Experience (Web + Mobile)
Parent Experience (Web + Mobile)
Parent's get easy access to:
Parent's get easy access to:
A progress timeline
A progress timeline
Reports
Reports
Consent tasks
Consent tasks
Messaging access
Messaging access
The mobile-first design was especially impactful, reflecting parent's real usage habits.
The mobile-first design was especially impactful, reflecting parent's real usage habits.
We built a clickable prototype covering:
SENCO flows
Teacher workflows
Parent mobile experience
This allowed stakeholders to walk through the full system end-to-end.
Reflection ✨
Working on this project reinforced how essential it is to balance existing insights with fresh user perspectives. Even though we had access to previous SENCO interviews, speaking directly with them again revealed nuances in their daily challenges that shaped several of our design decisions. My past experience designing multi-role platforms also helped me guide the process more confidently, ensuring each role, SENCO, teacher, and parent, received the clarity and structure they needed.
One of the most meaningful decisions was designing a dedicated mobile experience for parents. Understanding that many parents rely almost entirely on their phones made this a turning point in creating a platform that truly fits into their lives rather than asking them to adapt to ours.
Leading the design from start to finish gave me the opportunity to support my teammates, align everyone around a shared direction, and collaborate closely across research and design phases. This collective effort ultimately paid off, our project partner immediately recognized the value of the redesigned multi-role system and expressed that it finally reflected the platform they had envisioned.
Overall, this project strengthened my ability to design for complex user ecosystems while staying grounded in real needs, collaboration, and purposeful decision-making.
Working on this project reinforced how essential it is to balance existing insights with fresh user perspectives. Even though we had access to previous SENCO interviews, speaking directly with them again revealed nuances in their daily challenges that shaped several of our design decisions. My past experience designing multi-role platforms also helped me guide the process more confidently, ensuring each role, SENCO, teacher, and parent, received the clarity and structure they needed.
One of the most meaningful decisions was designing a dedicated mobile experience for parents. Understanding that many parents rely almost entirely on their phones made this a turning point in creating a platform that truly fits into their lives rather than asking them to adapt to ours.
Leading the design from start to finish gave me the opportunity to support my teammates, align everyone around a shared direction, and collaborate closely across research and design phases. This collective effort ultimately paid off, our project partner immediately recognized the value of the redesigned multi-role system and expressed that it finally reflected the platform they had envisioned.
Overall, this project strengthened my ability to design for complex user ecosystems while staying grounded in real needs, collaboration, and purposeful decision-making.
Prototype
Prototype
Prototype
A clickable prototype was created to simulate the cross-role journeys, allowing stakeholders to walk through onboarding, documentation, screening updates, parent interactions, and student progress tracking. This became a key asset during stakeholder reviews.
A clickable prototype was created to simulate the cross-role journeys, allowing stakeholders to walk through onboarding, documentation, screening updates, parent interactions, and student progress tracking. This became a key asset during stakeholder reviews.
2025
Cogniphant
Designing an Inclusive
Multi-Role Platform for
SEND Support
2025
Cogniphant