School Report Card Design: Usability, Understanding, and Satisfaction

The Every Student Succeeds Act requires state education agencies to produce user-friendly school report cards that present information about school characteristics and performance. Charts, graphs, and other design elements in these report cards must meet the needs of educators, administrators, parents, community members, and other stakeholders. REL Mid-Atlantic partnered with the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education to test five different online report card designs with users. The study looked at how easy it is to use and understand the report cards, how easy it is to find information in them, and whether users would recommend them to others. The study found that moving information about the district’s overall school performance framework from the top of the page to beneath the district’s numerical score improved the site’s usability. In addition, reporting more detail on the points possible for each metric led to a better understanding of how the score is calculated. Other design choices had mixed effects. The study provides a model for how policymakers and practitioners in other states can test school report card design.