The College Company
TuitionCoach.com

Paul Wrubel, a professioanl financial consultant and ex high-school principal lectured to parents on a daily basis about how they can afford to send their child to the college of their dreams. He approached us with the desire to turn his expertise into an online service that parents all over the Nation could use to minimize their costs for college.
Web Site
http://www.tuitioncoach.com

Year Built: 2005
Project duration: 14 months
Zaudhaus role: User-Model, Interface Concept, Interaction Design, Interface & Identity Design, and Engineering

Services
Site Design & Development
Custom Web Applications

Industries
Education, Financial services
Non-Profit
STATS
RELATED
CHALLENGE + SOLUTION
The Challenge: The most complex part of the challenge with TuitionCoach was coming up with a user-model that could be somewhat familiar to parents who don't like spending too much time filling out forms. Additionally, the business and legal rules associated with filling out those forms and providing information was core to the overall system.

Our solution followed a similar model to tax-preparation software. The notion of an interview format fit nicely with the requirements we had for interaction. We then worked very hard to come up with a user-experience that didn't feel like they were going through tax-planning. The questions were in short doeses and ultimatley provided a profile to the system for the amount that was possible to be awarded. In particular, one feature that we've filed a patent on actually analyzes the resulting financial aid package and based on results provides suggestions for next steps to a parent (for improving the package).