Product Strategy

Last Updated: 2026/05/04

Executive Summary

This project aims to convert an existing PowerPoint-based educational tool into an interactive, mobile-friendly web application for anatomy students.

This project is based on the work of Prof. Brian Elliott, created during his final years of education. In the human anatomy class, students must purchase a bone set to study the bones of the human body, but they are not allowed to take these models out of the lab. Prof. Elliott observed that this restriction could cause inconvenience for students who want to quickly review the bones before an exam. To address this, he created a PowerPoint presentation that includes images of the bones taken from different angles (with permission from the department), and he annotated these images to highlight the various bones in the set using different colors and filters. He utilized all available features to create an easily accessible presentation that students could use for quick revision or brief study sessions before tests.

However, he wanted to make this resource even more accessible. He envisioned offering students a platform they could access on their iPads, or laptops—devices commonly used by students. This is where the web application comes in. It is designed to be a quick and easy guide for students to use for exams, to quiz themselves on essential knowledge, or to learn from material that is simple and provides an overview of the human bones. This application is based on the information in the presentations created by Prof. Brian Elliott.

Product Vision

Vision Statement

We envision that within the next 1-2 years, Digital Bone Box will be ready to launch with the addition of additional study tools and user logins so that students may save personalized study notes.

Mission

Digital Bone Box aims to provide an easy-to-use and portable interactive application for anatomy students to learn the human skeleton.

Success Criteria

• Consistent user base

• Positive user feedback on how well the app helps students study

User Research and Needs

Target Users

Primary: College students studying human anatomy

Secondary: Generally not applicable, although we might move in the direction of having admin access and admin accounts.

User Needs and Pain Points

1. Lack of access to bones outside the lab. And existing study tools for bones may not be as easy to navigate as when you have physical specimens

2. Portability and accessibility—Prof. Elliott's current students use his PowerPoint presentations for studying, but that isn't as easily viewable on mobile devices

3. Interactivity—Prof. Elliott's current students use his PowerPoint presentations for studying, but they're not very interactive and don't have dynamic study tools.

Research Methods

• User survey (to be conducted in the future). We have prepared a survey of questions to be administered to anatomy students to gather feedback about the site, once we have a demo version of the site available for them to view. This section will be updated once we have the results of the survey.

Market and Competitive Analysis

Existing Solutions

1. Textbooks

   • Strengths:

     • In-depth information

     • High-quality information

   • Weaknesses:

     • A lot of information at once; can be overwhelming
     • Not interactive
     • Can't integrate with digital study tools

2. PowerPoint presentations/slideshows

   • Strengths:

     • Get a quick overview of most important details; good for studying and cramming

     • Can save files or slides to digital study tools, or edit the files directly to take notes

   • Weaknesses:

     • Only summaries of information; not very in-depth
     • Still not very interactive

• Our differentiation:
  • Interactive; multiple study tools
  • Take notes in the app
  • Varying levels of detail depending on tool/view, to fit current user need

Market Opportunity

There are a variety of studey apps and note-taking tools. Students use many solutions to help them study. One unified tool for their anatomy classes would simplify and streamline the process.

Product Positioning

Key Features and Benefits

1. Quiz feature: Users can quickly quiz themselves without having to take the time to set up a quiz on third-party sites like Quizlet.

2. Personal study notes (upcoming): Students can personalized notes that are directly tied to the content. This is in contrast to taking notes separately, which will not be tied to the course content and there won't appear on all their devices right alongside the study material.

Product Roadmap

See Roadmap.

Technical Approach

Architecture Overview

See Architecture.

Go-to-Market and Adoption

Launch Plan

We are not yet ready to launch; so we have only a rough outline of ideas about a launch plan.

The app would be marketed to Saint Louis University students first and likely first made available via internal SLU tools. The app would be publicly available for anybody to use, however. The app would be listed on the Open Source with SLU website, which would be one avenue for publicity.

User Onboarding

A major priority for the app is user-friendliness, so an onboarding process would ideally not be required. However, there is already a Help modal in the app which can be expanded if necessary.

Open Questions

• How will the app be deployed?

• How will the app be advertised to attract users?

• What is the most effective avenue for regularly obtaining user feedback?