Oppia is a global online learning platform for under-resourced learners, with over 1 million active users. It provides curated lessons in four languages and an extensive Exploration Library with over 20,000 lessons across 17 subjects, offering a wide range of educational resources for knowledge acquisition.
While we believe that learning should ultimately be driven by the student's own goals and curiosity, we acknowledge that learners often thrive with the guidance and support of these stakeholders. The Learners' group dashboard empowers educators to shape student success, enables the creation and management of learner groups, assignment of lessons, and tracking of progress for a personalized and effective learning experience for all.
As a product designer, I was responsible for designing an educator-facing interface, a dashboard that allows educators to actively monitor the progress and mastery of learners in the group.
When I took over the project from the previous designer, the design was in its early stages. The process of creating groups was not well-organized, and the dashboard lacked visual clarity and hierarchy.
Redundant information in a dashboard design leads to frustration and decreased efficiency, which can result in a higher drop-off rate and lower retention rate.
At a high level, I had specific steps to guild the design.
Look at all the features from scratch.
Prioritize what is necessary for the user ‘s ideal learning experience.
Determine which part of the UI should be revamped to provide better visual hierarchy.
How might we help educators create learner groups to connect students and monitor their learning progress effectively?
After looking into the existing flows, I reorganized the dashboard structure to make the entire process more clear.
01 –– From Overview, user can have a quick glance on skill analysis and progress in stories for their learners, showing which the current struggles students have.
02 –– The Learner Progress section shows milestones for each lesson and identifies learners who have not continued with their lesson plans.
03 –– Educators can navigate the assigned lessons in the Syllabus, allowing them to add or remove lessons according to specific study objectives.
In the second step of group creation, the challenge was to make it easier for users to add syllabus items, as the previous design was visually cumbersome and lacked information hierarchy. To solve this, a shopping cart-inspired design was chosen, with a fixed section for added items at the top and a scrollable area below for displaying syllabus items, enabling educators to manage their lessons conveniently and keep learners organized, focused, and on track.
To prioritize important information for educators and enhance visual appeal, I adopted a minimalist approach and utilized icons to present content. The redesign included a side navigation menu, replacing the cluttered and confusing interface of the previous design, and making it simpler for educators to track their student's progress, which is their most important information.
To save educators time and provide a better understanding of skill levels, the skill analysis progress bar has been redesigned with breaking points instead of a solid bar. This change reduces the need for educators to spend extra time determining skill levels and identifying areas for improvement. Additionally, the progress bar for individual lesson progress now includes milestone indicators, showing the number of completed and remaining chapters, while the system sends reminders to students who haven't logged in for more than two weeks, enabling educators to monitor student engagement and progress easily.
The goal of the responsive design was to optimize information while maintaining consistency with the web experience.
Same as the desktop design, educators can create learner group and assign syllabus from their phones easily.
Hidden navigation drives down engagement and slow down exploration. I keep the navigation on the top session with the most frequent use actions for our educators.
How quickly and easily the visual design conveys information can help educators access important information and focus on their primary actions.
The task completion rate saw a significant increase of 28%
The research team conducted a focus group of 15 participants who are lesson creators in Oppia to verify if our design meets the goals. According to the findings provided by the research team, the task completion rate saw a significant increase of 28% in comparison to the previous design. Additionally, the post-project questionnaire revealed a 15% increase in overall user satisfaction with the experience. To determine the results, various metrics were utilized, including task completion rates, time on task, and error rates. In addition, after the participants finished all the tasks, they were asked to complete a post-test questionnaire to provide feedback on their perception of the website's usability.
What I would do in future iteration?
Our version 1 product has room for improvement. To enhance the current experience, we propose two areas of improvement. Firstly, I suggest showing recommendations for syllabus items to be added when an educator creates a new learner group. This way, educators can determine which lessons are more suitable for students at different levels. Secondly, I suggest adding new options for user invitations. Currently, there's only one option to invite users. With more technical support, we'll be able to send out invitation links and codes to increase convenience.
.png)
.png)
© Chloe Cao All rights reserved.
