Edupark (smart classroom)— Learning platform for school kids
Note: I did this as an assignment while applying for jobs a few months ago
Brief:
Imagine you are a school government student and you don’t attend school regularly because of the way subjects are taught. Govt. has planned to install platforms in school. This platform will have 10 apps. Our app is a content library. The task is to design the user experience right from when the student is enticed to pick our app to learn from it to the actual home screen of the app.
Problem Statement:
To provide a learning platform for government school students,
apart from the classroom.
Why?
To make learning experience interesting.
Since they do not attend school because of the way they are taught by their teachers in the school, so provide them an engaging platform to study
What is the app about?
Content library, where a person can search topics of their interest and gain knowledge
Users:
Government school students, preferably 8th grade and above
Assumptions:
For this assignment, I have taken the case where the User’s native language is Hindi, the language would change accordingly depending upon the location of the school
The students who have access to the app are from 8th standard onwards, who are fluent in at least one language (writing and speaking) as they would be able to use the app efficiently.
Challenges, thought process and questions
- The technology might be new to the students, hence the UX needs to be easy for students to understand.
- Discovery is an issue, how will the students get to know about the existence of this app when they are not attending school.
- There might be students who are not interested in studying, the challenge lies in how do we make it interesting so that their interest is developed.
- Will the students make an effort to sign up in the app? can we reduce that step?
- When would the students use the digital platform: before class, after class or during the class.
- Will it be a phone app, desktop app or tablet — keeping in mind that the app has to be budget friendly.
- Will it be sufficient to provide ONLY text? or we need videos too. To give login for the tab or for each app
- To provide an option to skip intro or not for the first time users? To use illustrations or graphics, if yes, then what kind?
Personas:
Solution
Considering the challenges that we might incur, the following is my solution:
To have a digital platform or a smart class where tablets are installed in the classroom. For learning and reading purposes, keeping the user in mind, having a tablet seemed to be the optimum solution, as a mobile app could be too small for easy reading or watching a video, the desktop might require high maintenance and also would require more budget.
Discovery and Onboarding Process:
The students would be informed about the availability of the SmartClassrooms, the students who have been absent might get to know it via their friends or whenever they are warned about their low attendance.
Students can use these classrooms under a supervisor in charge — to guide them and also to keep a check on the handling of the equipment as the students might be new to the technology, there should be someone to guide them.
Considering that the students may not be very tech-savvy, the school admin would create the login id and password for students and alot them (conclusion based on research). The students would directly log in and not sign up, although they would be provided an option to reset password once they log in.
The first screen of the app would ask the student in which language he would like to proceed: his native language or English, the content would be provided accordingly. This has to be at the beginning itself to avoid language comprehension problems.
I have introduced characters and would like to add animations to make it interesting and engaging. I have not made any mascot for the app as it could restrict the branding and variety we could have in the app. The characters would be like mentors, guiding the student through the app.
Implementation and benefits:
The school can choose to have 1 session for the smart class or make slots (day and time) for students to use the smart class post-school hours. Since the problem here is that they do not like how the teachers teach, allowing smart-class session might increase class attendance. There also might be cases where the student is unable to come to the class during school hours, in such cases the student can use the smart class with permission.
User Journey (steps)
- Taking the case of Rina, when Rina visits the school she is informed that due to her low attendance and consistent drop in grades she might fail. She requests for help but no teacher is available to take extra classes. She is then informed about smart-classrooms where students can have access to digital study material. She is informed that in her absence, unique ID and password had been set up for each student and had been shared with them. Rina is then asked to go to the admin office and take her credentials to have access to smart classrooms
- She takes the credentials and heads towards the smartclassroom.. she is very happy as the concept is new to her and is also looking forward to a new way of learning.
- She enters and is assisted by the supervisor in charge and logs into the device.
- Need: to search for topics and learn,
the student is able to connect with the icon of the library and clicks on edupark. - The student is asked to select language (onboarding only makes sense if the user is able to understand).
- Onboarding explains what all the student can do with that particular app
- Home screen — content divided according to subjects
Note: If the user is coming for the second time he would be directly taken to the home screen where he would also be provided the option to change the language
Why device login and not app login?
Since the government is installing platforms for students..where it has 10 apps where 1 is the content library (our app) it seemed to be a better idea to provide device login compared to app login, each student would have a unique user id password to log into the device.
Logging in each app would have been a task and also a hindrance in the experience of the students wherein they would have to log in each app separately.
Separate log in would also allow students too to keep track of their activities on the device individually
The student clicks on the icon which represents the library, I have kept the onboarding playful and interesting by using bright colors and introducing characters in the app
In my initial iteration, I had included “skip intro” during the onboarding screen but removed it later as I felt it was better to have lesser options and simple choice.
The informative onboarding is a one time thing would not be shown if the user enters the app the second time.
