STUBY

Indonesian students have no shortage of tutoring options — marketplaces, community groups, school noticeboards. The hard part is judging fit before you have paid for a session. Stuby started as a question: what if matching came first and browsing came second?

Interviews with students and parents, plus a walkthrough of five existing platforms. Recurring theme: profiles read like résumés, not like people you would learn from.

• 8 student interviews (SMA & first-year university)
• 5 competitor teardowns
• Diary study on how sessions actually get booked
• Survey on what makes a tutor 'click'

Students judge tutors on credentials they can't verify, and give up before the first lesson.

A soft, studious palette with a single green accent, rounded type and illustration that keeps the tone encouraging rather than academic.

Six short questions — subject, goal, pace, learning style, budget, schedule — framed as a conversation instead of a form. Each answer weights the match score.

Cards lead with teaching style and a short intro clip; credentials sit underneath, where they belong.

A 45-second sample lesson on every profile. In testing this was the single strongest signal students used to shortlist.

Match score is explained in plain language — students can see which of their answers drove a recommendation and adjust them inline.

Templated openers remove the awkward first message and speed up first replies.

Availability is shown as overlapping windows between student and tutor, so booking is a single confirmation rather than a negotiation.

Moderated usability testing with six students on a clickable prototype. The questionnaire length and the match-score explanation were both revised afterwards.

• Cut onboarding from 11 to 6 questions
• Moved micro-video above the fold on profiles
• Rewrote match reasons in plain language
• Added a 'not a fit' action to refine results

Stuby taught me that a matching product is mostly an editorial problem: deciding what to show first is the design. If I picked it back up, I would test trust signals for parents, who quietly hold the budget.