During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have turned to virtual apps and tools in order to teach their students remotely. How can we make the experience smoother for both parties?
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, students were placed in a difficult situation to learn and interact with their instructors and peers. The introduction proved to be a rather effective method to promote a successful and engaging method of remote learning.
Roles: Product Designer, User Experience Researcher
Timeline: September 2020 - December 2020
Tools: Figma, Zoom
Colleagues: Julia Nguyen, Nicolette Shin, Adam Syed
*Problem Statement
How might we foster an interactive remote learning environment that encourages student collaboration and supports various teaching styles?
*User Research
Evaluating how students and teachers of high schools and universities utilize Zoom for virtual classes
The goal of our user research is to analyze the interactions between students and teachers within remote learning, pinpointing both pain points and benefits as they go on to use Zoom daily. We'll assess and use the gained insights to create an experience that is more enjoyable and enriching. While surveying over 120 individuals in different Reddit and Facebook groups and well as interviewing 4 participants we found that:
At a Glance*
92%
use Zoom for remote collaboration
Pros
- Easier to work around overall schedule - Watching lectures asynchronously at faster speeds
62%
Strongly Disagree to “I prefer online learning over in-person learning”
Cons
- Hands-on learning differs heavily from virtual (i.e. labs and clinicals) - Slower pace, less sense of urgency - Needs an understanding of technology (decent learning curve) - Factors within home environment (wi-fi speeds, noise)
*Key Insights
1. The level of interaction between students and teachers during remote learning has been affected to where motivation is at an all-time low and students feel as if they are just staring at a screen for hours.
2. Remote learning has made it difficult for teachers to have flexibility with how they teach their class as they are bounded by their app's limits.
*User Personas
Lo-Fi Prototypes*
Creating the user flow to visualize how those using Zoom could reach their end goal.
The opening zoom window includes a side panel on the right for showcasing reports based on previous Zoom sessions. .
When starting a new class, the teacher can choose between presenter or interactive modes. While presenter mode is similar to how Zoom is structured currently, interactive mode allows the teacher to implement a plethora of features and tools they consider appropriate for their lecture.
Teachers are also able to preview the call and share their screen before entering the call.
Once in the main room, the teacher can toggle between modes with ease using the dedicated button at the top.
Once in interactive mode, the teacher can now see the student chat on the sidebar. On the top right they are able to use different features such as Game Time and Breakout rooms.
Game Time gamifies the quiz feature on the present Zoom to allow for engagement friendly competition from the class. Game Time also shows a leaderboard of the top scorers that day in class.
On the sidebar is the Question feature that lets teachers pose questions to the class as well as gather results in real-time.
To allow the most flexibility for teachers, this settings page allows them to pick and choose which features they want to use. They can either select or drag using the drop tab bar.
User A/B Testing Insights*
Evaluating the efficacy of our solutions and user flows by testing our prototype on various students and teachers.
We created an interview guide and a set of tasks for our users to follow. The goal of each user was to be able to navigate through our prototype and all of its added features as easily as possible. Once they finished their tasks we surveyed them about their experience. Following user testing, we have established four significant findings:
1. What do you think are the differences between presenter vs. interactive mode? Do you notice any differences between the two modes?
There could be more signifiers when changing between interactive and presenter mode.
2. How do you think a class would react to a set of new features for lectures (Game Time, real-time questions, etc.)
Although the addition of newer features could improve the overall engagement of students, there should be a set of consistent buttons that everyone can access with ease.
3. How do you feel about the process of creating and posing questions to the class? How would you feel about presenting the results to the class?
The process of polling and posting results is a straightforward process, but showing students names could be discouraging. It does however, allow the teacher to gauge the overall performance of the class that lecture.
4. Is there a reason to prefer clicking to select over drag and drop and vice versa? How would you like to know if a feature has been selected?
It is simple to select the user's desired features in the settings menu, but more signifiers can be used to show the change.
*Ideation: Before and After
Presentation vs Interactive Mode
Iteration
Final Iteration
Removed the Presentation/Interactive Mode toggle completely and placed it in the general settings to ease navigation and limit confusion. Therefore, if presenters wanted to use the interactive mode feature they would have to enable it in the settings window.
Interactive Features on Tab Bar
Iteration
Final Iteration
Relocated the different interactive features to the bottom tab bar as opposed to the right panel as we considered the screen sharing use case. The format is consistent with Zoom's current version to remove the need to learn new layouts and enable a smoother learning curve for returning Zoom users.
Settings Page
Iteration
Final Iteration
Streamlined the process of selecting desired features to allow for full control of the tab bar. Teachers can only include what they deem necessary and can cater to their various teaching styles with ease.
Avatar Customization (Extra Feature)
Iteration
Final Iteration
Users now have the ability to customize their own profile avatar. This feature was specifically created for students whoaren’t comfortable showing their faces on camera and for those who might be introverted. This new feature also complements the overall look of the lectures by having interesting avatars rather than only a background with the user’s initials.
Onboarding Screens
*Final Prototype
Our solution resolves the problem with the lack of motivation and engagement student's are dealing with during remote learning. It also allows the instructor to have an increased flexibility with their teaching how they can structure their lessons.
Streamlining the Progress
At the height of the pandemic, schools were adjusting to this new way of teaching and learning. Making Zoom's navigation and user flow as quick and easy as possible allows all parties to utilized this video conferencing app to it's full potential.
Adding a Bit of Life
The addition of newer features (Whiteboard, Mindmap, Quiz Time, Annotation, and Break Time) allow for teachers to find ways to add more life into their virtual lectures. Although it is impossible to replicate an in-person class, this allows for the most immersion possible with endless possibilities for further expansions.
Customizations Galore
The versatility in our solution could assist teachers and students to be more comfortable with an app they're using on a daily basis. The easily accessible settings panel allows users to access all their configurations with ease and confidence.
This 3-month long project helped me grow as a Product Designer as it showed the importance of adaptability. Adjusting to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult task for most, so it was great to really sit down and understand in what ways it's affecting students and teachers. Zoom states their values in mind in their mission "to develop a people-centric cloud service that transforms the real-time collaboration experience and improves the quality and effectiveness of communications forever." We wanted to use our skills as User Researchers and Product/Visual Designers to craft a solution that felt like step in a forwards direction despite everything in the world in that moment feeling like a step back.
Thank you so much to my amazing team for all the memories while working on this project. Y'all were the biggest highlight for me :^)
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