Crafting the Future of Online Learning: Enhancing Teacher and Student Connections
ROLE
UX Researcher
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TEAM
Margaret Cook [Project manager]
Grace Melcher [Client Communication]
Tony Wang [UX Researcher]
Panru Jing [Designer]
Julianne Vega [Designer]
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TIMELINE
January 2021 - May 2021
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TOOLS
Figma | Qualtrics | Google Suite
CONTEXT
Engageli is an online teaching platform for higher education institutions aiming to replicate the collaborative nature of in-person classrooms.

We spent a semester working with industry sponsors to help make the platform more user-friendly. We held weekly meetings with the sponsors where we shared updates on our work, received feedback, and gained guidance on next steps.
OBJECTIVE
To examine current Engageli platform and create a solution for how to improve the user experience.
We primarily focused on the teacher side of the platform; however, we also took into account the student interface to gain insights into how design changes on the teacher side could affect students' experience.
THE CHALLENGE
During the COVID pandemic, many teachers and educators faced challenges with a drop in student participation and engagement compared to in-person class, primarily due to the limitations of online teaching platforms.  

Engageli was a competitive alternative that had more features to enhance the learning experience. However, the Engageli team were concerned that this feature rich interface could be overwhelming to the users.
Using a research-driven approach, we conducted a thorough analysis of the platform’s existing features and design, using the following questions below to guide our research:
  • How might we improve the Engageli learning platform to better meet the needs of teachers conducting classes online?
  • How might we better incorporate aspects of in-person learning that benefit the online learning and teaching experience without overloading the users with features?
PROCESS
UNDERSTANDING THE SPACE OF ONLINE TEACHING
To understand what aspects of in-person learning were the most important to carry over to an online environment to promote engagement, we conducted a literature review of research comparing in-person versus online environments of classrooms.
In-person aspects to carry over:  ‍
  • The level of challenge of the course
  • Amount of active collaboration
  • Student-faculty interaction
To help us identify features that made Engageli distinct and areas for growth, our team conducted a competitive analysis of  alternatives platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, MS teams. comparing person versus online environments of classrooms.
What We Learned:​
While Engageli’s interface is not as simple, it has many more features for a better learning experience.​
UNDERSTANDING USER NEEDS
We conducted a questionnaire with 8 students and 10 educators to gain a deeper understanding of user needs and wants in terms of online learning.
Key insights from teachers:
  • Teachers want more ways to boost student engagement
    Inconsistencies in camera usage among students, ranging from 5% to 95%, hinder teachers' ability to gauge student engagement and participation.
  • Teachers want better optimization of breakout room management
    Teachers need improved room management features, including timing adjustments, and communication between breakout rooms and main room.
Key insights from students:
  • Students value professors’ ‘tech proficiency’
    75% of professors were rated as ‘somewhat skilled’.
  • Students want more peer interaction & participation enhancement
    Students perceived participation below average due to 37.5% of students keeping their camera off and muted. However, students found raise hands & surveys to be helpful features to interact and engage in class.
UNDERSTANDING USABILITY
We conducted both a cognitive and behavioral analysis to further develop our understanding of the platform's features and discover key issues to be improved upon. ​​
Key Issues & Pain Points: ‍
  • Lack of icon labeling of features making it challenging to understand their functionality.
  • Confusion on what the scales represented
  • Inconsistent button interactions with similar button types
Through a heuristics analysis, we identified areas of success and opportunities for improvement in Engageli’s interface.and discover key issues to be improved upon. ​​
Key Opportunities for Improvement:‍
  • Overwhelming for new users with an overload of features, functions, and icons
  • Undo and redo functions are not supported
  • Lacks confirmations for accidental actions
  • Overall, not user-friendly for first-time users
ANALYSIS & SYNTHESIS
We found that Engageli effectively tackled many challenges teachers faced in online teaching. However, as predicted by the Engageli team, usability was a primary concern. Despite a learning curve due to the platform's rich features, our research showed that these features were essential for an enriched teaching and learning experience.

To address usability issues, Margaret, Tony, and I compiled a list of user needs, concentrating on redesigning the organization and UI design of features. Below are some key user needs we identified during our research and the design solutions we proposed to address them
DESIGN & TESTING
We passed on the design solutions to Panru and Juliana to create the following initial wireframes below.
Using our initial wireframe, Margaret and I conducted user testing with 4 participants to gain feedback. The feedback was overall positive – users reported finding the platform more intuitive and experienced less confusion while navigating it. There were still some key issues which we identified below and brainstormed solutions to those needs:
Margaret and I passed our user testing results to Panru and Juliana to make the design changes and created the following final design.
RESULTS / REFLECTION
Our Impact
  • Gave the Engageli a list of actionable changes to improve the usability of the interface based on our research.
  • Improved visibility and clarity of the interface
  • Enhanced the engagement scales to encourage user interaction by using more intuitive icons
Challenges
  • Due to the limitations of conducting remote usability testing, faced challenges with observing participants' facial expressions and body movements
  • Initially struggled to pick a focused solution as we started with very broad scope of research
Future Work
  • Given more time, we could have also evaluated the student side of the platform
  • Similarly, we wish we had a chance to perform another usability test on the second wireframe
© Mio Shimizu