Duration:
My Role:
Tools:
Team Members:
August 2020 (5 Weeks)
UX Research, Visual Design
Manuel Rodriguez Nunez, Kelly Li
Figma
COVID-19's Impact on Education
Overview
Our team investigated current practices for learning and collaborating remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. From our research, we identified an overarching challenge most students faced with remote learning: the lack of interactivity and engagement.
Context
Our team investigated the significant impact COVID-19 had on education. The transition from in-person to online learning was very inconsistent and made socioeconomic disparities more apparent and increased education inequalities (Seker, M., et al). There were inconsistencies with the use of multiple online platforms, miscommunication of classes and resources, and the quality of learning. The most apparent inconsistency our team observed was the lack of interactivity and engagement within classes and peers.
Our mission was to create a new centralized platform that could ease students' transition to remote learning. In addition, we intend for that platform to encourage student interactivity and engagement
within their classes, student organizations and create the opportunity to build personal and professional connections.
Our How Might We
How might we mitigate the impact COVID-19 has on education to foster better community and engagement for students to become academically successful?
Preliminary Research
In researching COVID-19's influence on education, our team would like to highlight just how much of an impact COVID-19 had.
"... university students highlighted high levels of anxiety and worries about academic delays and influence of the epidemic on daily life, due to the disruption in students’ daily routine, in terms of activities, objectives and social relationships (Frontiers)."
" ... many school districts faced various issues, including lack of technology access for all students; teacher struggles to provide online lessons, student engagement, and the socio-emotional impact of COVID-19 on students (SSRN)."
According to a report from Statista, education is the second category in demand during COVID-19 pandemic.
"Due to COVID: 13% of students delayed graduation, 40% lost a job, internship, or offer, and 29% expect to earn less at 35 (Science Direct)."
COVID-19 not only widened the socioeconomic gap when transitioning to online learning, but also created multiple stressors, both emotional and physical. Its impact also has long-term effects on education, as well as students and teachers alike.
"By the last week of April 2020, the number of students who have been away from schools around the world exceeded to 1.6 billion... (Seker, M., et al)"
Primary Research
In addition, our team conducted research and sent out surveys (n =37) to directly ask students what their experience has been transitioning to online.
Survey Data
Survey Free Response
In addition, we would like to highlight a few responses of what students' personal experiences have been. We asked respondents: Overall, how has online learning affected your ability to connect with other students or colleagues?
“Definitely taken an impact, it’s a lot less personal and it’s harder to connect on a deeper level and create friendships or connections”
“It made it harder because I don’t have all of my classmates’ social media’s or numbers.”
“Yeah, it felt difficult to make or maintain any new relationships with other students and even with my current friends as a result of online learning”
Out of 22 responses, the most frequent answers were that it was hard to form and keep any sort of connection with others, that their connections were not the same as in person, and that they didn't have their classmates contact information.
Overall Insights
To summarize our team highlighted some key insights of students' experiences with remote learning. From our research we found:
Personas
From our research, we created two personas that best reflected our target user demographic. The first being a current university student adapting to the transition of classes going online and our second persona describes a freshman starting university fully remote.
We also included personality and online status bars to help visualize their confidence. In this context how likely they would reach out to form study groups or connect with others and how comfortable they are in using online platforms available to them.
Competitor Analysis
Now that our team had a better scope of what our project would be, we researched current online platforms being used as well as social media platforms. In doing so, we created a competitor analysis to find what features worked well in the context of remote learning and what opportunities our team could expand on.
Some key educational competitors we wanted to review were Canvas and Zoom. We also wanted to review social and messaging platforms such as Discord and Facebook.
In addition to doing a SWOT analysis we also wanted to do a feature analysis as a basis of what features we would potentially like to add to our own solution.
Competitor Features
SWOT Analysis
Initial Ideation
After conducting our research and competitor analysis, our team brainstormed some ideas on what features we would like to implement in our online prototype.
Wireframes and Sketches
We started to iterate on those ideas to better visualize and emulate what our online platform experience would be like.
In the first sketch that I drew (left), I wanted to show two versions of what the home dashboard would look like. In the second sketch (right), I drew was to show what it would look like once you "tap" on a course or group. You can see the overview of what that course/group is about and the number of members within it.
In the sketch on the left below, I sketched to show what it looks like to search for courses or groups. In the second sketch, you can see what the dashboard for a course/group would look like with an ongoing meeting that you are able to join.
The first sketch is meant to show what it would look like when there is an ongoing lecture.
Some features show an interactive polling and being able to view members who are also in call.
Team Sketches
In this sketch, you are able to view more about what logging in would look like as well as your profile.
In addition, you can see what an ongoing lecture looks like, courses/groups, and their home page. You can also see the messaging and video calling and calendar with events.
Low Fidelity Mockups
Below is an overview of the low-fidelity prototype of our app. Features we were focused on including were profile creation, view/add friends, built in live meetings, courses and messaging.
User Testing
The feedback we received from user testing was:
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Clarify groups and courses when searching
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Create onboarding to help learn app navigation especially on how to join groups
Our Solution
In the final iteration of our prototype, we created a high-fidelity of our online platform called Hover. Hover is meant to create a new centralized platform that could ease students' transition to remote learning. Hover encourages student interactivity and engagement within their classes, and student organizations, and creates the opportunity to build personal and professional connections.
Some of its key features include:
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In-app meetings, text, video, and audio chats
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Build community by finding and adding friends and classmates
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Join classes, official university organizations, student organizations and groups
Moodboard and Style Guide
For Hover's moodboard, we wanted to create a visually delightful palette. We wanted the palette to be playful and energetic. The main color we chose for our app is orange and added accent colors of orange, blue, and green.
We decided on Nats as our header fonts and Poppins as our body font for our style guide.
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
After another round of user testing, I present you with our final design for our online platform: Hover!
Hover strives to be a centralized online application that allows users to join classes, social communities (student orgs or resources), form study groups and more!
In addition, I also designed the messages, calls, and calendar. I wanted the design for these pages to be simple and have a clear hierarchy.
Hover's home dashboard and messages are some of the screens I designed.
I also recently updated th visual design of live lectures.
I also created the layout and design for course and community dashboards.
A Few More Designs
Create a Profile, Add Friends and More!
Join Courses and View Live Lectures
Reflection
Next Steps
For this project, I would conduct more research and competitor analysis to see if the project would be still be viable. In addition, I would like to hone in on Hover's features in making it stand out to be marketable within the online learning space. Then I would seek funding or partnership for this project and work towards developing and launching it.
Technical Skills
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Wireframing
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Visual Design
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Prototyping
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Communication
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Reliability
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Time Management
Soft Skills
Skills Improved
Throughout our investigation into the impact of COVID-19 on education, I gained valuable insights into the challenges faced during the transition to online learning. We uncovered how inconsistencies in platform usage and communication, increased existing socioeconomic disparities, leading to lower educational quality.
From personal experience and from working on this project, it deepened my understanding of the importance of fostering community in remote learning environments. Reflecting on this project, I recognize my growth in empathy for those navigating challenges and hardships.
Citations
Aucejo, Esteban M., and Jacob French, Maria Paola Ugalde Araya, Basit Zafar, “The impact of COVID-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey”, Journal of Public Economics, Volume 191, 2020, 104271, ISSN 0047-2727, (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104271).
Clelia, Zurlo Maria, and Cattaneo Della Volta Maria Francesca , Vallone Federica. “COVID-19 Student Stress Questionnaire: Development and Validation of a Questionnaire to Evaluate Students’ Stressors Related to the Coronavirus Pandemic Lockdown,” Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 11, 2020, ISSN=1664-1078.
(https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576758)
Seker, M., A. Ozer, and C. Korkut. "Reflections on the pandemic in the future of the world." Ankara: Turkish Academy of Sciences Publications (2020).
Slavin, Robert E., and Nathan Storey. "The US educational response to the COVID-19 pandemic." Best Evid Chin Edu 5.2 (2020): 617-633. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3652585)