How Array Education embedded iterative product testing cycles with students throughout the development of Trek, a career and purpose exploration platform, now reaching 100,000+ students on Overgrad.
Product questions don’t arrive on a school’s schedule. For teams building EdTech, getting student input at those moments can be difficult when research depends on school calendars and partner availability.
Working with In Tandem, Array embedded iterative student testing throughout the product R&D, using different methods as distinct product questions emerged. The value was a feedback capability that could move at product-development speed.
The challenge
Array Education’s Innovation Team is focused on helping young people prepare for what comes after high school. Through Trek, the team wants to help students develop a clear sense of purpose and to be able to make decisions about their future based on who they are, not just what’s available to them.
Array could reach students through existing school partners, but that access depended on school calendars, partner availability, and staff capacity. The team needed a way to keep learning during summer and busy school periods, and to include perspectives beyond its existing school network.
“Partnering with In Tandem helped round out our feedback in a really meaningful way. It gave us access to a more diverse group of students and helped us feel confident that we were building for a broad range of learners, not just a narrow market.” - Jenn Paik, Managing Director of Innovation, Array Education
How research with In Tandem supported Array’s product development
In Tandem manages the complexities that often slow this work down: recruitment, consent, payments, scheduling, communication, and participant support. By utilizing the existing In Tandem infrastructure and cohort of Youth Partners, Array could bring product questions to students as they became important which standardized the feedback loop for product iteration
Career and purpose exploration is a current strategic priority; the team wants students to be able to explore possibilities fluidly and take practical steps as their interests develop. Trek brings that work together in a suite of experiences delivered through Overgrad.
Because of the fluid and evolving nature of this product’s development, the work did not follow a single research sequence. Instead, the method changed with the question.
- When Array was exploring a new need or idea, small-group discussions and interviews helped reveal how students understood it and what mattered most to them.
- When the team needed to see how an experience worked in practice, moderated sessions allowed researchers to observe behavior and ask follow-up questions.
- When Array wanted to know whether an emerging pattern extended beyond a few conversations, unmoderated studies brought in a larger set of responses.
"The focus groups and one-on-one interviews were invaluable for getting nuanced insight into how students are actually thinking. But being able to pair that with a larger sample, of close to 100 students, meant we could feel confident that what we were hearing wasn't just one or two voices. When 20% of a hundred students say the same thing, that feels meaningful. The two approaches really complemented each other." - Jenn Paik, Managing Director of Innovation, Array Education
As the product evolved, Array could move between those methods: explore a concept, revise it, test it again, and then examine it within the wider Trek experience. In Tandem's recruitment and coordination made that ongoing access easier to sustain.
The feedback loop could follow the product, with each round of learning helping shape the next question.
What lower-friction research made possible
Reliable student access changed where research could sit in Array’s development process. Instead of reserving user research with students for major milestones, Array could use it while decisions were still flexible. In that sense, the value of the partnership was not simply access to more feedback; it was the ability to make user research with students part of the normal rhythm of product development.
- Youth input helped Array make more confident decisions about which ideas to move forward, revise, or reconsider.
- Repeated research helped the team distinguish recurring patterns from individual preferences.
- Access beyond its school partners also brought additional perspectives into those decisions, and access outside of the parameters of a school year.
As Trek reaches schools, implementation creates further questions about how students engage with it across different settings. An ongoing feedback capability gives teams a way to keep learning as the work moves from designing an experience to understanding its use.
For other EdTech teams, Array’s experience offers a practical lesson: dependable access to students makes it easier to bring youth evidence into everyday product decisions. When recruitment and coordination become easier, teams can act on that evidence while there is still time to improve the product.