LSFI Learner Dashboard

Help African learners stay on track with their courses
From January 2024 to August 2024, I collaborated with CMU Africa and the Learning Science Innovator program team to design a personalized course tracking dashboard for African learners. This initiative aimed to enhance course completion rates by boosting learners' motivation to finish their courses.

Role

Product Designer

Timeline

Jan 2024 - Aug 2024

Team

2 Product Designers2 UX Researchers1 Product Manager1 Developer

Skills

Figma
User Interview
Usability Testing

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Current course completion rate is very low.

FINAL SOLUTIONS

A personalization tracking dashboard to motivate African students to finish certificate courses

View Product Prototype
View Project Website

IMPACT

What we achieved

Increased Course Completion rates

+32%

Increased Satisfaction Scores

From pre- to post-course surveys.

+30%

Reduction in Time Spent

Decrease the time learners spend on navigating the platform & searching for relevant content

-25%

TL;DR

25%
Reduction in Reading Time
High
User Satisfaction Increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS)
20%
Increase in User engagement

As a product designer, I collaborated with CMU Africa and the Learning Science Innovator program to create a personalized course tracking dashboard aimed at improving course completion rates for African learners. The project involved identifying key challenges, such as time constraints, goal misalignment, and a lack of external support, through user research and surveys. We developed solutions like progress visualization, personalized course recommendations, and a badge system to address these issues.

Part 1

Context

USER RESEARCH

Understanding Our Users: Identifying Challenges & Validating Pain Points

Background
The MasterCard Foundation’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), offers an online certificate program for EdTech professionals in Africa.

Problem
‍However, the program struggles with low completion rates and poor engagement. Half of the learners did not complete the first module, and only 20% finished the initial course.

Goals
‍Our capstone project aims to identify the reasons for this low completion rate and develop solutions to improve both completion and learning motivations.

USER SURVEY & ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW AT KENYA

Diverse Learning Goals, Shared Challenges

TARGET USERS

Diverse Learning Goals, Shared Challenges

PART 2

Ideation

OVERALL PROCESS

From Identifying Target Problems to Crafting Effective Solutions

User Survey
Storyboards
User Test
Cultural Context
Recognizing gaps in prior lab research, particularly in pre-course surveys, we saw the need for additional user data to fully grasp the challenges learners face during the course. We conducted a user survey to validate our hypothesis about user pain points and ensure we understand their needs. This led us to gather quantitative data and validate our findings through surveys.
Our ideation process began with brainstorming potential solutions, followed by using affinity diagramming to cluster ideas by themes. Within each category, we synthesized similar concepts and conducted a preliminary evaluation to prioritize the most critical issue-solution pairs. We then used the Impact vs. Feasibility matrix to identify features with the highest feasibility and impact.

Finally, we created 3 storyboards to visualize each idea, helping us better communicate with users and gather their feedback.
We conducted a mix of user interviews and tests to gather feedback on our storyboards and to better understand learners' specific needs for freedom and agency when creating a personalized plan. From these ideas and feedback, we can gain clearer design directions, assess whether our ideas address their problems, and understand their reactions to our concepts.
Even though we have several design directions for feature ideas, we also identified specific needs related to cultural differences and confusion among our learners that require further exploration. Additionally, we are uncertain about the best ways to address their desire for recognition, so we conducted a literature review to inform our approach to inclusive design considerations.

PART 3

Outcomes

OUTCOMES

Our Solutions to Address the Challenges

Features One

Progress Visualization & Tracking

Adding a learning path on the dashboard home page to indicate their current progress.

It keeps learners motivated by celebrating their achievements and showing how much further they need to go to reach their next goal.

Features Two

Personalized Course recommendation

By answering a few simple questions, learners receive a tailored plan of 6 recommended courses. They can further customize both the content and order of this plan. This solution is designed to assist learners with a limited background in learning science or those who want to quickly find relevant courses.

Features Three

Earning Badges

We introduced shareable badges as an alternative achievement for smaller learning milestones.

PART 4

Iteration

USABLITY TESTING

While it may seem useful, is it truly usable?

Based on our research on the African audience and a thorough literature review, we identified gaps in digital literacy and cultural context that need to be addressed in our inclusive design approach. To reduce cognitive load and the extra effort required to understand the dashboard, we designed and conducted rapid usability tests to ensure the dashboard is intuitive and easy to navigate.

For the usability testing, we invited 8 users from diverse backgrounds to perform five main tasks that we designed to evaluate the primary flows and features of the dashboard. Our goal was to identify sources of confusion and assess whether the dashboard has the potential to motivate users and enhance their learning experience. The feedback provided valuable insights, highlighting potential changes for the final iteration of our product.

DESIGN APPROACHES

On the way to improve usability levels...

Progress Visualization & Tracking
Personalized Learning Path
Badge System

Part 5

Final Design

Solution One

Adding a learning path to indicate their current progress.

Solution Two

Tailoring recommendations to provide Personalized Courses

Solution Three

Earning Shareable badges to showcase smaller milestones

REFLECTION

Designing together

During my work as a product designer, I learned invaluable lessons that significantly influenced my approach to projects like the personalized course tracking dashboard for African learners.
Thanks for stopping by! :)
2024 designed by Monica Chen
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