Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash
My role:
Project Lead • Client: Education Publisher NDAThe project details are confidential, but I want to describe the main principles and methodology.
Education in Poland is a tough market, not just because it changes fast, but because it’s mandatory and often not very popular with younger students. Most teens don’t want to spend their after-school time studying more; they see it as extra work. They usually cram last minute and rely on the internet to get things done faster. Our client wanted to use that as an opportunity to develop a new kind of digital product.
As a Lead Researcher and Service Designer, I was working with a client's representatives and UX researchers to maintain a detailed, multileveled study.
How to build engagement for an educational product
Our goal was to understand first-year high school students as consumers by examining the non-educational products they use. This was the first step to build a Multi-stream Service Blueprint for an Educational product. 🔗
Main goals
Our research focused on three key areas:
- Identifying what motivates teens to use digital products.
- Analysing popular apps for communication and usability insights.
- Understanding Polish teenagers’ spending habits and purchase drivers.
Outcome:
- Exploratory desk research about teenagares online activities.
- 16 deep interviews in teen-parent dyads with decision making matrix.
- Desk research about teens income, banking and spending habits
- 64 pages of a report and recommendations.
- 2 workshops with product team and marketing.
How to build engagement for an educational product
The educational market in Poland is shaped by unique corelations:
→ Teachers play a pivotal role in selecting one of the approved textbooks based on preferences and using it for the entire academic year.
→ At the same time, textbooks often come with supplementary materials for students, like glossaries, tests, and digital tools; these are typically tied to the leading publication (textbook) and may be optional, so parents usually decide when purchase extra resources - as was the case with our product.
This complex interplay of decision-makers and users is a defining feature of the market.
👉🏻 To engage teens, we also have to win over the adults.
Worth remembering:
The following research was based on the market and respondents from Poland and might be specific to our region
The following research was based on the market and respondents from Poland and might be specific to our region
Phase 1: Choosing respondents
Exploratory research
Goal: To create a vivid, data-driven snapshot of our ideal users by piecing together insights from previous research and user studies.
Methodology: Extended exploratory research, market analysis
Defining respondents
We began by defining our target audience and gathering initial insights about them.
👉🏻 Gen Z is also called Generation C,
from the English: connect, communication, change.
Based on previous clients' research, we knew that Polish teenagers predominantly use digital tools for entertainment and often resist engaging with educational tools outside of school.
Focusing on young adults (first year of high school), we also noticed differences between the younger “Gen Z” and the older ones during the initial analysis. Those few years (in Poland, high school has four classes, students range in age from 15 to 18) were more significant than we expected.
Sources
This phase of the research was based on cyclical studies, such as:
- the NASK research group, Teenagers 3.0 and Teenagers towards online shopping, the Young Digital People analysis (Maciej Dębski / Magdalena Bigaj, 2021),
- consumer research about younger generations (Accenture, PEW),
- bank reports on young users (Santander, ING, PNB Paribas).
Interesting points of view presented in J.M. Twenge's book, iGen (2019) were also good starting points to start a dialog with our participants.
Polish youth, shaped by our history and late EU integration, embody a partly unique generational profile:
- They were born between 1995 and 2012, so they are a very broadly understood generation.
- Raised in a post-communist, internet-connected world that emphasizes personal autonomy and global citizenship.
- Digitally native generation, comfortable with e-commerce, e-books, e-banking.
Responders for screening:
- The main target of this research was the first class of high school teenagers who disposed of their money.
- We choose middle-sized Polish cities with shopping centres and middle-income populations to find diverse research respondents beyond major metropolitan areas (as in Poland, there are only few vast cities).
- Acknowledging parents’ key role in purchasing decisions, we also sought to understand their perspectives.
For this reason, we decided to conduct the interviews in student-parent dyads.
Interviews with most important people
Method
We used scripted conversations and a Mural exercise to gather brand preferences and product value data. Parents were asked to predict their child’s choices and compare them with previous results. The final discussion allowed us to observe family dynamics around money and spending habits.
Our interview process was structured in three parts:
- Individual sessions with the child (45 min)
- Short interview with parent separately (15 min)
- A joint session with both at the end with a comparative discussion (10 min)
Main questions to ask:
- Where teens get money?
- How and where do they shop?
- What motivates their shopping decisions?
- Their favorite products and brands
Interviews
Goal: Gathering insights and observing participants behaviours
Methodology: user interviews, custom-made value matrix
We used a three-step scale to assess insights based on their probability and strength during interviews and analysis.
🔵 ⚪️ ⚪️ – Relevant to individuals
🔵 🔵 ⚪️ – Visible in most of the group
🔵 🔵 🔵 – Strongly expressed by the majority
Quick learn:
During our initial interviews, we quickly realised our hypothesis about brand importance was slightly off. Actually, respondents didn’t have specific brand preferences. The problem was far more complex. We had to adjust our approach on the fly, changing the scenario a little.
The big insight? Young adults cared more about quality-to-price ratio than brand names. This flexibility allowed us to gather more relevant data and understand our respondents’ true preferences.
Fragile research – our main risk to avoid
The main challenge was combining data into clear conclusions without bias. In qualitative research, there’s always a risk of filtering data through personal experiences (e.g., the researcher being a parent). However, the unique insights from these interviews demanded objectivity.
We decided to work with insights in the form of a joined workshop.
Main insights and new questions
👉🏻 I must say that these studies were extremely fun and refreshing, giving some unexpected journeys through a unique ocean of users.
Some insights examples:
ABOUT MONEYMost teens receive money through regular allowances and spend them in two ways: cheap needs and expensive wants.
I save up cash and then spend it on whatever I’m into right now – depends on how much I’ve got in my pocket.
– respondent
– respondent
SPENDING HABITS
They barely use cash. Prefer online and NFC payments, and in Poland also pays by BLIK.
I pay contactless using my card or Blik from my account cause I always have my phone on me.
– respondent
– respondent
MOTIVATIONS
Price-conscious teens prioritize quality over immediate purchase. They research in-store but prefer online shopping, especially when prices are lower, and strategically wait for sales.
I like to feel product in shop, but if it’s cheaper online, I buy online.
– respondent
– respondent
I’d rather snag one solid pair of shoes on sale than waste cash on cheap kicks I’ll ditch later.
– respondent
– respondent
Diving deep into results, we felt… little old. Especially when teens were talking about their online preferences.
👉🏻 TikTok is now better than ‘Uncle Google Advice’ (that’s what we call in Poland when searching for every answer on the internet) and Facebook and Twitter (X) is for ‘old and boring people...
Fast news:
- Teens don’t use email nor for logging in, nor for communication.
- Although they love internet, they are not trusting it whit shopping decisions.
- Most big influencers have lost the trust of young people, so teens turn to more minor, more local personalities.
- They still appreciate their parents' and friends' advice and often find anonymous reviews untrustworthy.
- They love to test and try before buying. Cheap is not better than quality for them.
- They see quality as a luxury worth to buy on sale (a little more awareness about fast fashion, maybe).
- And more.
We combine those insights with further desk reaserch. The last phase of the study was associated with a comparative analysis of respondents' preferred brands/products, examining their brand voice, value propositions, and sales channels. Gathering these insights, we split data into chapters: Money, Spending Habits, and Motivations to connect them with recommendations better. The result was extended 64 pages long report.
More questions than answers
Our early recommendations focused more on painting a picture than offering direct solutions.
👉🏻 We discovered that teens’ school and private lives differ significantly, requiring careful strategy in user targeting.
After school, they minimise their educational engagement to the bare minimum, making it hard to attract them to products in this field. They often do homework… on the bus. So the aim is to deliver ultra-fast, on-the-go solutions, micro-tools that save time during commutes or short breaks.
Recommendations can be:
- Quick wins: bite-size lessons, one-minute drills, rapid quizzes showing instant progress.
- Minimise friction: one-tap access, offline use, minimal setup, seamless sign-in.
- Integrate with daily routines: design for smartphones/tablets; fit into bus rides and waits.
- Show quick impact: emphasise time saved, fast completions, visible progress.
I like young Gen Z as Users
This close study was somewhat revelatory for a Millennial UX designer who knows modern engaging mechanisms but has a chance to closely observe a teenagers raised entirely in a digital world. They are part of it, deeply, yet they are also critical and disappointed in the online world.
These duality may stem from youth or signal a savvy new generation of customers resistant to cheap marketing and loyal more to the product quality than the brand personality.
👉🏻 From a UX perspective, Gen Z seeks new types of tools: TikTok as a search engine, YouTube as TV, voice messages for communication.
Even in education, they prefer conversational platforms like Brainly or Quora over professional portals and textbooks, placing trust in the community rather than authority. Winning them over requires inventive designers and marketers who understand these shifting preferences. Not an easy job for an industry built on strict and not-so-user-friendly rules of general education.
Case Study on Zima Design page (written by me)
Joanna Barbara Sabak • j.b.sabak@gmail.com • tel. (351) 924-706-735 • Linkedin Profile
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