Case study
of digital learning platform
Context
Digital and learning platform that provides personalised education to support students’ learning. Students have access to different types of contents assigned by teachers or recommended by the system. Some of the content has deadlines and teachers might explain it further in the next class while some are individual practice or games students can choose to do on their own in order to improve their study.
What is the task?
Design the pages that students can use to access the homework content and do the task.
Who are the students?
9-15 years old children. They can be both motivated or not in studying (what can be their motivation?).
What user experience do students have?
The process was started from expert interview. I found children who are studying at a distance learning school. Since all online schools require me to be an enrolled student to log in, this was an ideal opportunity for me to study a competitor.
From the interview, I made a short list of the functions that the student may to use and write down an approximate flow that user make to get to the homework (pic.1).
Also I get know that a competitor uses widgets from third-party services for video and games. What impact it gives? For example, the interviewed user didn't watch the training video for a long time, because for this she had to register on one of these services. This reduces the involvement in the process and the continuity of the process is lost. In their case practical tasks are in the form of tests, control tasks are given by teachers for self-writing by hand.
Based on the competitor's analysis, I was able to sketch out the architecture of the required service.
Which type of content students can interact with?
Text, images, video, audio. Also it can be formed into interactive games, quiz, practice tasks.
I believe that the type of homework assignment depend on the subject to which it is attached. Thus, we have different design cases for the same page. At this step, I have questions related to the implementation of written assignments that involve the work of writing by hand. As everyone knows, such exact sciences as physics, chemistry, mathematics require explanations for solving problems. There are services that allows to design complex formulas and functions online, but after using them I can conclude that this method is much more time-consuming than writing by hand. This raises the following question:
Which type of device students use during studying?
Text, images, video, audio. Also it can be formed into interactive games, quiz, practice tasks.
If we consider the option when students use laptops or computers to complete assignments, then they will surely face difficulty in completing the handwritten assignments mentioned above. They would have to photograph the assignment on the phone, send it to the cloud (or in any other way), download it on a computer, and only then upload it to the account. In the case of using a tablet, this option would be easier, since tablets have a rear camera. However, tablets are slower to print than computers. The situation with the phone is similar to the tablet. Although the phone has the advantage that student can carry out a task anytime, anywhere, cause we always carry phones with us.
This flow can be a pain point for users. So I guess that platform has the app where students can upload such kind of tasks. This flow can be a pain point for users. So I guess that the platform has the app with which students can upload such kind of tasks. Or the web version should contains the feature "save as draft", so student can use multiple devices at the same time.
What can motivate to study better and complete all assignments?
Text, images, video, audio. Also it can be formed into interactive games, quiz, practice tasks.
If we consider the option when students use laptops or computers to complete assignments, then they will surely face difficulty in completing the handwritten assignments mentioned above. They would have to photograph the assignment on the phone, send it to the cloud (or in any other way), download it on a computer, and only then upload it to the account. In the case of using a tablet, this option would be easier, since tablets have a rear camera. However, tablets are slower to print than computers. The situation with the phone is similar to the tablet. Although the phone has the advantage that student can carry out a task anytime, anywhere, cause we always carry phones with us.
As I mentioned before type of homework assignment depend on the subject to which it is attached. That's why for creating high-fidelity UI I choose subject screen – which also is related to homework but doesn't consist many user cases.
