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UX DESIGN / UX RESEARCH / INTERACTION DESIGN
Uplift K12 Lesson
Planning & Gamification
UpliftK12 is an online EdTech whiteboard product that enables teachers and educators to facilitate lessons to their students, and engage with them in fun and meaningful ways. Their expertise lies in the mathematics space, but is currently expanding to offer more subjects.
UX/UI Designer, Researcher,
Interaction Designer
January 2022 -
March 2023 (In Development)
UpliftK12 / Mehul Shah
What is Uplift K12?
UpliftK12 is an online EdTech whiteboard product that enables teachers and educators to facilitate lessons to their students, and engage with them in fun and meaningful ways. Their expertise lies in the mathematics space, but is currently expanding to offer more subjects.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Challenges
Our team was tasked to focus on two separate features/challenges, both pertaining to the UpliftK12 platform.
Lesson Packaging
A packaging feature for lessons, used by tutor/instructor
Client says: “We want 90% of tutors to feel prepared for their lessons, want to make the platform more organized and easy to navigate through”
Gamification
To gamify the lessons, encouraging student participation and help them feel comfortable in their learning environment.
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"We want 90% of our educators to feel prepared when they start a lesson."
MEHUL SHAH - CO-FOUNDER
DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
Stanford Design Thinking
Our team focused on the Stanford University design process of discovering, defining, designing, and delivering. Where we were reiterating each step of the way.
While this was a great starting point, our process ended up looking a little less linear than the graphic above.
DISCOVER + RESEARCH
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Our team was in need to gain a better understanding of how students are encouraged on their learning journey leading to their success. We used Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Motivational Theory as a perspective to design our research plan, emphasizing the idea that students are able to reach their potential when they are at their current need level.
Competitive Analysis
We conducted out competitive analysis by focusing on companies that are known for widely used features on whiteboard and gamification. Under whiteboard category, we looked into Nearpod, Google Jamboard, and Brainingcamp. Under gamification, we looked at companies like Koala Learning, Freckle, and Kahoot. As a team, we were breaking down key flows and features of competitor’s websites to understand how the platform’s current navigation compares to Uplift K12.
Comparative Analysis
For Comparative Analysis, we looked more into companies that offer personalized learning plans such as DailiesPods and Tutorpeers. Also, companies that offer gamified learning experience like Prodigy and Duolingo.
A Closer Look at the Current State
We conducted a heuristic evaluation to optimize usability by minimizing design deficiencies. We took a depth into current Uplift K12 website for its effectiveness of the interface and their features. We were looking for any all gaps in the current UX that we could take into consideration when beginning to design for our prototype.
Interviewing Some
Amazing Educators
In order to dive into deeper insight of current education experience and platforms that are used by the educators, we conducted 5 scripted user interviews with individuals with strong education background. Among the interviewers, only one interviewee had experience using Uplift K12 to teach their students.
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Interview Findings
After interviewing some pretty amazing educators, we grouped key findings based on what they said regarding how they felt when using teaching platforms and what motivated their students. The following are direct quotes from those interviewed.
Mapping Out the Responses
In order to synthesize and make sense of our research observations that were gathered from the interviews, we had a collaborative design lab building an affinity map and “I” statements together. We separated our sections into Lesson Packaging, Gamification, and a Mutual section that included insights from both parties. Here are some “I” statements that we were able to retrieve from the affinity mapping.
View Full Affinity MapLesson Packaging
I want to gauge the student’s understanding at the end of the lesson.
I need a way to efficiently build a structured yet adaptable lesson plan that is based on the student’s journey.
I am guided by a student’s learning style to help inform engaging lesson planning
Gamifying Experience
I need to apply individualized intrinsic motivation through the use of extrinsic tools, creating excitement for lessons.
I want to ensure that students, when faced with disappointment, do not disengage with the lesson.
Mutual Ideas
I am driven to teach by witnessing students’ progress through “aha” moments.
I prioritize building a trusting relationship with the student in order for the student to feel safe and encourage perseverance
Dividing Our Efforts!
Based on the two separate design challenges, we divided into two separate sub-groups (post initial research) to tackle each challenge. I was a direct part of a team of three in lesson packaging to solve the first task. Throughout our project we had daily checkins to where both team got together to check and discuss the design process and any difficulties we were facing.
1. Lesson Packaging
Focusing on the first challenge, packaging lessons for tutors and educators to have a "turn-key" experience on the platform.
2. Gamifying Experience
Focusing on the second challenge, gamifying the learning experience to keep students motivated and feel comfortable.
DEFINE - LESSON PLANNING
Meet Jenna, our Tutor
From the data points we had from affinity mapping, we created two personas that would drive the design for our new website. We had Jenna represent the lesson packaging as a tutor looking to find a lesson plan that resonates with different types of students. We will refer back to Jenna during every step of our design process.
JENNA'S PROBLEM
Educators want to create lesson plans that build strong relationships and keep students engaged. This is problematic as educators have little time to plan lessons, limited information on the students, and need a way to learn what motivates their students.
OUR SOLUTION
We need to deliver a quick and familiar way for educators to build upon lesson plans to cater to student’s individual needs, encourage motivation, and enrich the student-educator relationship.
Feature Prioritization
We set out to work on the feature prioritizations for our website using the MoSCoW method where we mapped out a list of features that could be used in the design. Must haves with high impact included:
DESIGN
Task Flow - Plan and Assign a New Lesson
For lesson packaging for educators, we revised the flow for building a new lesson on the platform and incorporated the idea of saving modules and exercises into packaged groups that could be assigned to students. The idea of ready to use packaged lessons that can be modified into a student’s learning journey was implemented.
Task Flow - Plan and Assign a New Lesson
For lesson packaging for educators, we revised the flow for building a new lesson on the platform and incorporated the idea of saving modules and exercises into packaged groups that could be assigned to students. The idea of ready to use packaged lessons that can be modified into a student’s learning journey was implemented.
Sketches to Mid-Fidelity
Taking our knowledge from our research phase, with our personas and user flows in mind, we began sketching, critiquing, reiterating, and collectively setting the foundation of our designs. As two teams of lesson packaging and gamification, we ran a collaborative design lab, where each member focused on sketching different pages of the application. My part of the sketches and wire framing focused on the creation of My Student Page for the educators to be able to view the student’s information. Starting to come to life with our wireframes, some of our key design decisions included the following.
• Bringing a new “create button” to support ease of use in creating new lessons, quick assign, or uploading new material
• A new button to Explore Library, improving navigation to all the wonderful materials existing in the platform
• Simplifying the filtering options in the library, reducing cognitive overload, and increasing efficiency and familiarity
We enhanced the tutor’s view of My Students.
• Quick access to view the student’s recently completed lessons and future assigned lessons
• Any badges that the student has earned (more on this gamified feature later!)
Shared notes section: This is particularly valuable, as it allows the tutor to have quick access to learn about the student’s preferences, learning styles and motivators, as well as leave information about the child’s progression for parents and guardians. This not only helps to facilitate the tutor-student relationship, but also improves communication to parent or guardian, improving the experience across affiliated products like Click-Learning.
PROTOTYPE + TEST
Wireframes
We framed and developed interactions similar to the existing platform, but added a few new interactions to help enhance the educator flow.
Usability Testing
In total, we ran mid-fi usability test on 5 different users that were currently using Uplift k12. We had users complete same set of tasks in each round of testing for consistency. Each prototype went through 2 task from each group , resulting as total of 4 tasks.
Objective: We wanted to check if users from Uplift k12 had an improved browsing experience when it came to creating lesson packaging, and practicing gamification through rewarding students.
Methodology: Moderated remote testing
Direct Instruction Needed
Repetition of Lesson Assigning
Unclear Iconography
Revisions After Initial Testing
Solutions
We spent a great amount of time and effort to minimize the design as well as to make navigation simple to use throughout the website. We added all the feedback changes that were made from previous usability testing as well as the new features to cover ideas from our client. When finalizing the look and feel of the UI and design system, we kept some of the original U12 theme and tweaked the color palette and typography hierarchy.
Style Guide
Utilizing a bright orange, off white, and cool dark blueish black, the feelings of West Texas come to life, paying homage to the land Marfa Burrito is on. The bold typography makes for good legibility while the button contrast bring a new feel to the UI. The logo is geometric and simple, giving a modern touch.
Conclusion and Takeaways
We have designed a process for tutors to quickly and easily build, duplicate, assign and launch both preset lessons, as well as create their own lesson packages. A new tutorial feature has made becoming familiar with the platform easy for new users. The rebuild of the student profile allows tutors to learn about their student's preferences and learning styles, while being able to share updates with the parent or guardian.
Some of my next steps would be to:
and Interaction Designer