Nuggets

The Problem

Most organizations provide training either through traditional methods, in which users have to be physically present at the training location, or through online mediums that focus only on providing the content to the user. However, these organizations often think more in terms of the "means" of delivering the content, rather than the "ends" of whether the learner can achieve anything with the training.

In my research, conducted with over 50 people, I came to a shocking realization that about 70% of users leave online courses without completing them, and only about 40% of people are satisfied with the training they receive online.

Roles and responsibilities

As a User Experience designer, I was responsible for the ideation, research, interaction design, and visual design of the Nuggets app.

The process of finding a relevant solution began with understanding and evaluating the challenges of traditional training methods, which require employees to attend training sessions in person at a single geographical location. Discussions with stakeholders and individuals revealed the following key insights:

• Traditional training methods are not cost-effective, and businesses can save high overhead costs that occur in traditional training methods by using online training applications. This is because applications can be accessed by users anytime and anywhere, eliminating venue costs, food, accommodation, instructor fees, and training resources cost.

• Users face challenges in accessing content, especially if an organization has multiple locations. Online training methods allow organizations to deliver training to a large number of employees in a short time, regardless of their location. Salespeople who are on the field most of the time find it difficult to attend in-person training sessions, and online training solves this problem.

• Giving users the ability to learn at their own pace leads to increased retention. Discussions with individuals revealed that they prefer having control over the content and the process of learning. Providing users with the freedom to learn what they wish to learn and when they want to learn increases engagement and retention.

• Users prefer personalized training relevant to their skill. Personalized learning techniques help learners enhance their personal skills and allow trainers to embed various innovative ideas such as polls, quizzes, feedback, etc., in an easily accessible format on smart devices.

• Stakeholders revealed that it's almost impossible for them to track the effectiveness of the training program. Therefore, incorporating a system that shows the degree of learning of the participants is necessary from an organizational standpoint.

The early insights helped me understand the need for a transformational learning system that should address at least the following problems:

• Providing personalized training materials that are highly engaging so that end-users are motivated to complete the course without losing interest.

• Motivating users to complete the material and re-engage with it if they are losing track, by incorporating features such as progress tracking and reminders.

• Serving as an assessment tool for the organization to evaluate the performance of individuals, in order to track the effectiveness of the training program.

Design Process

To work on this project, it was important to create a good UX strategy.

User survey and interviews

To gain insights into users' reading habits, I conducted a user survey, which revealed some important patterns and provided me with the information I needed to proceed to the next phase of UX research. The survey can be accessed here.

For the next phase, I conducted personal interviews with users to understand the challenges they face, the factors that motivate them to learn content online, and their expectations from the system. Based on these interviews, I discovered the following:

• Users prefer having ample practice materials in addition to the training.

• Users tend to prefer watching content over reading to learn.

• Online learning offers great flexibility, allowing users to take courses at their own pace and convenience without being restricted by time or location. However, too much flexibility can lead to inactivity, making it challenging to complete the course.

• Users prefer learning alone but also appreciate peer interaction, acknowledging the value of sharing knowledge, which helps them retain it for longer.

• Users find bookmarks useful for keeping track of things they want to refer back to or save for future reference.

• Users like to save interesting content to read later, especially during their commute or at their convenience.

Defining the pain points

After the user survey and interviews, it was time to define the main pain points.

Attention - Existing systems fail to motivate users to complete the course. A majority of users leave the course without completing it.

Relevance - The content provided by existing systems is not always relevant to users' needs.

Confidence - Existing systems fail to help users feel that the skills acquired by learning would be useful in real-world scenarios.

Satisfaction - Current systems do not always provide feedback or help users evaluate what they have learned. Satisfaction can be increased when users appreciate the results and are motivated to learn.

Once the key points were defined, I started working on relevant solutions to the problems.

Attention

• Divide the entire project into sections that correspond to a module and show progress as the user completes each section. This can help users stay motivated to complete the project.

• The ability to see the goal and monitor progress helps to motivate users. Creating small goals that are easy to achieve every day and having statistics with them motivates users to complete the course.

Relevance

• Provide content relevant to users' needs. Users prefer personalized learning recommendations to exploring content on their own.

• Give users the ability to set their own goals.

Confidence

• Give users goals to accomplish. This will boost their confidence.

• Ensure that users are aware of performance requirements and evaluation criteria. This will motivate users to take the course seriously.

• Help users feel that their accomplishments are a direct result of the effort they put forth.

• Optional quizzes during chapters and mandatory quizzes after completing training modules can help organizations make assignments for performance evaluation.

Satisfaction

• Satisfaction is based on motivation, and users can be motivated by providing feedback.

• Give users the ability to bookmark content and easily locate specific content when needed.

• Give users a clear view of what they have collected.

User Flow

Before creating the wireframes for the app, I decided to create a simple user flow that would reflect how the user would interact with the app.

Once the user flow was created, I immediately started working on the low fidelity wireframes of the app that I could show to a test group and get their feedback.

After creating the low fidelity prototype, I received feedback by showing the paper prototype to users whom I had surveyed and discussed the app's functionality. This step helped me identify key elements that needed iteration before proceeding with high-fidelity prototyping. The lo-fi prototype was also useful for quickly validating my hypothesis with real users.

Through this process, I was able to pinpoint that:

• The user should be able to distinguish stories and modules easily.

• The statistics part of the app needs to be prominent to keep the user motivated and engaged, and

• Users want to know the duration of each story/module.

With a clearer understanding of the app's functionality, I began prototyping the high-fidelity mockups for testing with a larger audience.

High Fidality Prototype

The high fidelity prototype helped me uncover deeper usability issues. To keep the user engaged with the content, it was important to show the progress of module completion. Hence, I created three different designs to display module completion: one with a progress bar, one with percentage completion of the module, and one with the cards completed vs the total number of cards. The majority of users voted that the design with cards completed vs the total number of cards gave them a better sense of completion. It clearly showed how much content they had completed and how much was left.

During usability testing of the lo-fi prototype, I designed chapters to be divided into multiple cards so that users could complete the whole chapter without getting bored or distracted. However, feedback from users revealed that having a restriction on the number of characters would create issues in the future, as content can be longer at times. Also, users found it difficult to figure out how to change the cards.

To address these issues, I decided to change the approach to displaying content and removed the restriction on the number of characters. I also added buttons to move forward and backward at the end of each card. This helped resolve the usability issues and improved the overall user experience.

Final thoughts

For the next phase, I am planning to work on the social influencing aspect of the app for humanizing the learning process.Besides, provide personal interaction within the online world as much as possible and then redo the usability testing before starting the app development.