eLearning platform design to connect products with users through an interactive learning experience.
UX Design Case Study
Note: Under Non-disclosure UX ethics, direct/actual final details have not been shared. Design process & phases outcomes have been included with permissions from company.
Overview
Insculpt Tech. is an EdTech startup that develops educational resources. Company is offering activity based kits/products along with digital learning resources which are essential to skill up the real world as well as academic knowledge of students. The vision of the company is to make learning through STEM education accessible to all; in a fun & interactive way.
Problem Statement & Goals
"Designing an eLearning platform aligned with company’s product-service model, which will provide meaningful learning experience considering context & audience suitability while ensuring the growth of sustainable business."
Despite having a good concept and products, company’s outreach is limited to operational region. Accessing wider user base while offering equal quality education experience is the key for future of startup.
User & Audience
The edtech products & services based on STEM education are designed & developed for the school students of age group from 5 years till 18 years having various backgrounds.
Parents & teachers of these students are also considered in user category.
Role
I was the sole designer in the team who handled the product design process right from its inception. As a core member of the team, I worked closely with other members who were developers & engineers.
Scope & Constraints
The project was started in early in 2020 with the intention of launching the product within 3 months. Due to the global pandemic issue, the project has to be halted at the user research phase. Altered market environment led us to restructure & redefine the product strategy.
As I was also involved in EdTech product development, that knowledge helped me to translate the vision of core product into the digital platform design.
Process
Based on the nature of the project & intended outcomes/goals, the design process was selected such as it will facilitate the seamless development right from requirement to solution via users.
Following design process is derived from the process formulated by Nick Babich.
Product Definition
First of all, the whole team came together to form the outline of the product to be developed. By brainstorming over multiple factors such as context, purpose & users (which were both facts & assumptions), we came up with a definition of product as given in the problem statement.
Image source: IBM Design Thinking Toolkit
Research
Uncovering the users' insights & needs as well as product features is a crucial stage in designing a solution. Following techniques were used to dive deeper into the project.
User Interviews
For interviews, we focused on parents & teachers as they have a major role in a student’s education. Through the interviews, we realized the region wise gap between user needs & level of understanding; it was a great help for us to lead in right direction.
Contextual Enquiry
To better understand the actual end users; that is students. We conducted contextual enquiries wherein we tested the EdTech products, content & overall concept with students from different schools.
This stage proved to be the most insightful where many of our assumptions broke down. Here we understood that students actually need an experience which is beyond screens & typical digital learning. They enjoy real world learning over pretty animations.
Competitive Research
"Standing on the shoulders of giants"
Looking into what contemporary solutions are available in market & how users are responding to them was our first move. We picked up insights/clues from the flaws of other players.
Analysis
In this phase, we put together the findings from the research and started connecting dot. We kept business goals, product features & user insights in the forefront while reflecting on the data so as to generate the ideas.
User Persona
Based on the overall research, we finalized four different personas. Actual personas involved in interaction were only two, that is parents & teachers. Despite that, two personas of different students were defines in order to define the motivations & end user goals.
User Journey Map
Based on the touch points that would occur between the product & the user were plotted on a timeline over the different channels. This journey map helped to get into the user’s shoes and how will they react to the product through actions as well as emotional state.
Design
Once the users’ needs, expectations from a product were understood properly, we moved onto the design phase where we started ideating solutions which will address all the goals within a frame of good UX.
Site Map
To well visualize the user interaction, I went through the site mapping where structure of the site was constructed. This was done by keeping in mind the user tasks & company products & services. The mapping was done by keeping in mind the ‘3-Click Rule’.
Wireframes
Once the structure was defined, then paper prototyping was done to shape the interaction & content as per user flow. After multiple initial prototypes, digital wireframes were prepared in visual format as below.
Final Design & Testing
The product designed is yet to be launched thus I am not to disclose the final design version. Testing of the website will be conducted first through sponsored users and then soon upon with actual users.
Outcomes & Learnings
'Creating a great product for users as well as business' was the goal of the project.
During this project, I learned that developing a product based on our own assumption is dumb idea, users might not like them at all.
Connecting the product range of company with the digital learning platform and then putting it to the users was a tough task.
There are well designed products in the same domain, so building our own based on that was not a difficult job. Rather, making it more compliant with business goals & inclusive to all the users/services was a big challenge.
Overall, this project made me interact with users at various stages. I interacted with parents, students, had discussions with teachers as well as school administrators.
Connecting with NGOs & educators to gain insights about ‘unexplored’ extreme user regime was very much ‘enlightening’ in this learning path.
As I was also involved in development of resources, designing for UX gave me a new perspective of approaching problems & deriving solutions.
_____________
For working on the project in most efficient way, I took upon learning UX through various resources. I pursued design courses & guidelines to level up my skills. IBM Design Thinking Practitioner 🔗 as well as IxDF HCI 🔗 were great courses which enabled my user-centric perspectives.
