Arbor Parent App 4+

It’s hard to believe that the Arbor Parent App went through any serious user acceptance testing or had input from a skilled UX developer. The interface is a nightmare to navigate, with clunky menus and confusing layouts that make even the simplest tasks unnecessarily difficult.

One of the most frustrating issues is that the app doesn't notify you when a club or activity is no longer available. You’re left in the dark, with no indication that your child’s activity has ended until it’s too late. This lack of basic functionality is unacceptable in an app meant to streamline communication between parents and schools.

Overall, this app feels like it was rushed to market without proper testing or consideration for user experience. It’s the worst app I’ve had the displeasure of using, and I hope the developers take these criticisms seriously and make significant improvements. Until then, it's incredibly frustrating to use.

School switched to this from other apps and in doing so parents have lost loads of functionality. Particularly irritating is the apparent inability of the app to both auto top up lunch money payments, and notify when the balance is low. I don’t want to have a huge balance available in case my child is tempted to spend too much, or made vulnerable to spending money on peers (due to disability). Have raised this with school to no response, and even emailed the developers of the app who first said they couldn’t speak to me because I wasn’t a school, then sent a guide through to adding money, which wasn’t my question! School have since phoned and said they are frequently having to call home to ask for the app to be topped up, and fielding calls from irritated parents with the same issue. No idea why the developer is so reluctant to engage on this, would presumably be a straight forward fix for them.

The app’s interface is not very user friendly. For example I have to scroll through endless amounts of homework assignments dating back to the beginning of the year until I can find the homework that is currently due for my children. Also, I have had problems with booking my child’s parents evening appointments as it is not showing any available time slots for any of the subjects and all of my other child’s parents evening appointments from the last 2 years are appearing in the list to confuse the process even more, even though I am on my other child’s account. Very frustrating as the school have said it’s the only way I can book and I now can’t see my child’s teachers at parents evening and will instead have to receive an email update even though they apparently have available slots. Lots of other parents have been experiencing the same problem.