Digital platform
A brand new platform for remote students
May – June 2022
UX-Designer
Stockholms Stad
Figma, Mural
The web platform is a project to create a step for the future development of quality-assured studying tools. The project identifies current difficulties and dilemmas and provides intuitive support for hybrid teaching with the platform.
Adult education in Stockholm City is looking for new processes and methods to create quality-assured hybrid education.
The City of Stockholm offers different types of adult education. You can, for example, study individual upper secondary school courses, learn Swedish at sfi or study at the polytechnic.
I was a UX designer and performed project planning, user tests, wireframing, HI-FI prototypes, etc.
I collaborated with three colleagues Arvid, Krystyna and Riddi.
Adult education is in need of new methods to meet the needs of students and teachers as the pandemic has created new expectations. Students experience difficulties in relation to their learning in hybrid learning and how to use Teams as their learning tool when participating remotely. As a result of participating remotely the support of the teacher is not adequate with what is given in the physical classroom.
The project was based on the Design thinking approach and went through the Double diamond design process. What did the phases look like in the design process from initial idea to the final product.
Preparation and analysis. Empathizing with students to identify the underlying problems.
Problem definition based on interviews and identification of Pain Points.
Idea generation to cluster the overall goals and direction of the design solution.
Based on the surveys and methods, a digital interface was now being developed.
Final test with prototype and design refinement.
After delivery, we evaluated the results with the client.
During the process, preliminary work was initiated to create a deeper understanding of the challenges facing adult education. We went through a cursory reading of documents from the administration. It became clear to me that adult education further wants develop hybrid teaching, however their current agreements does not allow such an approach. Instead their approach is focusing on how they can utilize their current assets in terms of a technology equipped remote classroom which would perhaps create better quality for remote learning.
In order to empathize with our users and create a deeper understanding for their needs semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted. A total of 19 stakeholders and users were interviewed. In order to obtain an understanding of the users perceptions, empathy maps were also used.
The interviews created insights and a sharper framing of the problem, it became clear that the primary needs lies with the students and not the teachers. Several students prefer the physical classroom compared to remote teaching. They feel that the technology creates barriers for their learning.
Nonetheless students appreciated the ability to participate remotely, when and if they could not attend in the physical classroom. Thus, the aforementioned hybrid classroom is not something that was taken into account, as the students see other needs and problems in regards to receiving support with their remote learning.
Digging into the data revealed some vital insights and into the users experiences.
Students felt that the introduction to their teaching materials at the course introduction is too short and not sufficient. This becomes a very early problem for the students in their education.
Adult education uses Teams as a learning tool. Students found Teams to have advanced navigation to submit information and keep track of other important functions. The result is that students miss important parts of submission and communication.
Several users experienced it difficult to understand and memorize Team's features, as there is no one that can provide digital support. Understanding how the teaching material is used in education is vital to ensure quality for the education.
Analyzing what opportunities, difficulties and assets the process had provided. This was done through brainstorming of ideas, based on the interviews and user research. At this stage, it was important for me to focus on our users and create solutions focused on their needs and not based on our own assumptions. In this way, we work human centered and with the right design direction to create the right conditions.
To steer the design approach towards our users and based on users pain points and their needs, we created different goals for the platforms purpose alongside with the potential content.
I established an impact map to evaluate ideas and how different impact goals would be perceived and utilized. This was done to create clarity in relation to the platforms functionality, what solves which problem, in what way and what effects the platform should achieve. In this way, we can consider what goals should be further developed.
The students have different prerequisites, knowledge and relationship with technology. Thus, the goal is to be able to make the web platform intuitive and motivating for students different use.
The desired goal for the digital platform is to instruct and assist students within the adult education to enhance students overall knowledge with their use of their different learning tools. Our goal is to utilize and provide students with this digital platform before they start their course. Such an approach could help and assist students early in their process of raising their knowledge in regards to remote learning and the attached learning tools they have to use and be familiar with.
In addition to this, the teachers' time can be devoted to teaching in order to develop the quality of the education. Thus, the teachers are also relieved from having to set aside teaching time for each course introduction with new students, since they would not need to re-introduce their learning tools every semester, due to the support the digital platform could create. The web platform should be seen as a first step in the solution to a well-developed and quality-assured education.
After generating ideas, Wireframes were designed. At this stage I was responsible so that the prototyping also corresponded with the desired goals of the effect mapping. This is to ensure that the desired goals within the framework of the project are achieved to the highest extent.
Before the usability tests, it had to be determined whether a learning support of the platform developed so far would make the students' relationship with the learning materials more efficient. Thus, two tests were created that observed the students' abilities to carry out various described steps.
One user test had to use the prototype as a support, whereas the other group were only given a task description to follow. The measures taken were time, number of wrong steps, students' questions and how many clicks they needed did to complete the tasks.
The students who were given access to the prototype of what tasks were to be performed took about 20 seconds to join the Teams meeting that we had started based on the given task.
Students who were not provided with the prototype required three time as much time to perform the same tasks.
Thanks to the user tests, I was able as an observer to identify what needed to be iterated and further developed into the HI FI prototype. As a result of the user tests, it became clear that three primary adjustments were needed.
The interface requires a clear home page.
Sentences need to be easier to read.
The platform requires more visual clarity.
The next step was to establish the identity of the interface. We wanted to create a platform that students can trust, especially since the users demanded clarity, security and intuitive assets. Profile colors and typography are based on the style color profile by Stockholm Stad.
This decision was made to make the platform familiar with the students, since their current workflows and platforms exists of Stockholms stads color profile. Creating a platform with a familiar graphic profile could help students to feel less confused and therefore enhance their usability of the platform.
In the short time frame, it is clear that the sprints we worked in clearly created opportunities to achieve a more quality-assured hybrid teaching.
The digital web platform is seen as a first step to enhance students learning processes within hybrid teaching. The platform will also be an effective tool to let students develop their digital skills as well as practice the Swedish language, which are two vital parts within the adult educations framework.
The insights we obtained and conveyed to the administration and the adult education were that a digital intuitive support is what the students is demanding to support them. Thus this platform would have been a great opportunity to further develop since students could potentially benefit from implementing such a platform within their current workflows. After the project delivery, the administration and Stockholms Stad have taken the solution, opportunities and possibilities of this digital platform in consideration to support their new agreements for 2024.
All users have different needs and different expectations. Currently, the functionality and content are very basic. In order to further develop so that every user gets an intuitive experience and adequate support, several design iterations need to be done as well as more user research and tests, to further identify what sort of implementations the users demands.
A video that was created to demonstrate the concept as a marketing material.
