Protégé Learning
UX Designer • 2 Months • Figma, Photoshop, Google Meet, Pen & Paper
Students face challenges in today’s remote school environment. Inconsistent online platforms and social isolation both contribute to students’ struggle with lesson comprehension.
Timing
9 weeks
Problem Context
How might we enable students to connect and learn from one another?
How might we make it easier for students to be proactive in seeking help?
How might we enable opportunities for students to help classmates?
Deliverables
Research-informed MVP
Clickable figma prototypes
20 in depth interviews with student and teacher participants
Final case study documenting design process
Research phase
To develop a deeper understanding of our user's needs and preferences, I employed a range of research methods including:
Secondary Research: Gained an initial 10,000 ft view of the project’s constraints
Interviews: Offered insights into users' learning habits and challenges
Affinity Maps and Empathy Maps: Helped connect commonalities among user experiences
Personas and Jobs-to-be-Done: Assisted in identifying key user goals
Interviews
To gather user insights, I began the research phase with an initial screener questionnaire. From the responses, I recruited 6 individuals for in-person interviews. These interviews provided a comprehensive understanding of the user needs and problems students experience with existing online learning platforms.
Secondary Research
In order to better understand the broader context of remote learning, as well as to inform and guide the direction of my project, I conducted secondary research. Key insights include:
Motivation and lack of accountability were consistently cited as determining factors in students falling behind while learning online
Students with strong social ties consistently performed better than their peers during online learning
Affinity mapping
While affinity mapping, I used color-coded post-its to categorize interview data and connect it back to individual users, linking feedback to overarching themes. Primary categories emerged:
Social isolation: Significant social isolation posed challenging for students to learn independently; faced with difficulty seeking assistance, students often found teachers too occupied to address individual concerns.
Students learning from one another: Students often sought help from classmates or learned by observing others' work, which significantly influenced retention and recall of information.
Unique challenges with online vs. in-person: Unique problems included a general lack of student accountability, such as excessive flexibility in study schedules, as well as disorganized, difficult-to-locate class materials.
Lack of consistency in tools: The patchwork of available tools added to problems completing classwork.
Personas
After mapping out interview insights via affinity maps, I crafted personas that represented 2 distinct user profiles that I observed during research.
Key Insights
Following the reserach phase, I distilled learnings into insights and How Might We statements.
Design Phase
After the research phase of the project I began the ideation & design phase:
User stories: Identified most important features to form a product MVP
Sitemap: Mapped-out information hierarchy to help visualize the overall experience
Sketches & lo-fi prototypes: Iteration and initial concept validation
User Stories
I crafted user stories to guide my MVP (Minimum Viable Product), prioritizing only core features that would enable my user goals. User stories that did not answer the mosts important user goals fell below the cut line.
Sitemap
Creating a sitemap helped map out all key features within the experience and visualized connections.
Sketching
I kicked off the concepting process by sketching key screens that addressed my How Might We statements. This enabled rapid iteration and concept validation. Sketching also allowed me to visualize different design ideas and conceptualize the user flow quickly.
Lo-fi Mock ups
After sketching, I created a series of low-fidelity wireframes which laid the foundational blueprint for the app's user interface and interaction flow. I then used those low-fidelity wireframes to create flows to flesh out the interaction model and navigtion.
Brand Identity & Style Guide
Name: Protégé— from the psychological principle known as "the Protégé effect”—asserts that individuals grasp information more effectively when they can comprehend it well enough to instruct others.
Values & Mission: Protégé wants everyone to feel the satisfaction of not just learning, but also becoming masters of their studies. We strive to forge a platform where students not only assist each other in learning, but also cultivate robust social connections in the process.
Attributes: Relaxing, fun loving, nurturing, encouraging
Colors
The color pallete was influenced by bold, vivid tones that encourage learning and imagination, juxtaposed with cool, soft blues to communicate areas of focus.
Typography
The Roboto typeface is a legible and clean font family, inspiring confidence and simplicity, while being compatible with many devices.
Hifi mockup
After building out a style guide, I iterated on high fidelity mock ups and clickable prototypes that enabled a realistic deep dive into the details.
Usability tests
I conducted 2 rounds of usability testing, each with 5 users. Users were given a series of tasks and a clickable prototype, which included account creation, class navigation, social features, and asset creation. The tasks were designed to asses ease of use and familiarty with the interactions and pinpoint usability concerns.
Key Interface Screens
Next Steps
Working with my teacher friend to get this in front of more users to continue testing and iterating on the study hall concept
Looking for ways to advance this work by seeking out partners, or looking for professional opportunities to bring this into