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LinkedIn Learning
IxD Case Study
Project Overview
In response to the design brief, our group decided to delve into the problem area surrounding education, learning and development. For the initial development stage of research, we were tasked to individually identify our own problem scenario, in which I decided to take it upon myself to explore factors associated with high academic expectation and the effects it has on students within the Asian community.
Team
Jessica Tan
Christopher Tong
Taryn Du Plooy
Tools
Figma / Figjam
Maze
Adobe CC Premiere Pro
Timeline
Aug 2022 - Nov 2022 (University Project)
Problem
How do factors associated with high academic expectations impact students within the Asian community?
From growing up labelled as a “model minority”, to the pressures of upholding family expectations surrounding education, students within the Asian community continue to chase after goals and aspirations influenced by factors in their life, all the while forgetting to take care of themselves.
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Research Plan
The goal of this research was to gain a better understanding of the factors associated with high academic expectations and the impact it has on students within the Asian community. Research questions were developed as a means of guidance for the overall objective of this study.
Research Questions
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What are the factors associated with high academic expectations?
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What effect does high academic expectations have on students within the Asian community?
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How effective are current designs in providing help and support for students of colour?
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What kind of support do students want?
Research Objective
“Understand how factors associated with high academic expectations impact students within the Asian community”
Design Process (Individual)
The aim of this research was to identify how students were being impacted by the factors associated with high academic expectations and to understand what types of support were being sought out to address issues relating to their academics. By discovering the intrinsic needs and issues of our users, we were able to grasp a better understanding of how we could provide the support that meets their needs and wants during difficult times.
Background Research
Identifying any existing gaps in academic literature and articles to have a better understanding of the research area that will be investigated.
Questionnaire
Questionnaires were conducted as a way of exploring study choices and current support services that were being utilised by students within the Asian community. In total there were 69 responses from current students and recently graduated students within the age range of 18-29 with a majority coming from an Asian background.
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Online Ethnography
Solidifying my understanding through investigation of different topics and opinions in relation to academics from an online community of users from my target demographic. The main themes that were discovered through online ethnography included topics regarding cultural differences, mental health problems and societal expectations.
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User Interviews
Seven user discussions were conducted, facilitating empathy and understanding on a more personal level with the target demographic and develop a deeper insight into needs and goals.
Competitor Analysis
Using competitor analysis to identify any gaps and opportunities with existing products. I compared four current mental health services that cater to different demographics and analysed the types of features and functions of each of them to get a thorough understanding of my competitors.
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Key Findings
From the research that was conducted, several factors associated with high academic expectations were identified as well as the numerous impacts it has on students of Asian ethnic backgrounds. Data from the questionnaire and user interviews were then carefully analysed and synthesised to identify key needs and problems.
User Problems
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Current products and services do not cater to the needs of students during difficult times in their academic careers
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A cultural barrier that some professionals providing support may not understand and be able to help the users with
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Overwhelming emotions during difficult times due to the lack of students keeping their struggles to themselves in fear of burdening others.
User Needs
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More professionals to be more understanding of cultural differences and have strategies to h elp address any issues that arise from them
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Accessible and efficient university services aimed to provide support for students
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A platform that connects users with fellow peers to help cope with their academic struggle
Gaps and Opportunities
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Students want to be able to access support more easily without having to go through the lengthy process of filling out information that exist in some products
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Opportunities to implement interactive community based features where students can chat with peers about academics
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There is a current lack of service that cater to the needs of this demographic, with problems surfacing as a result
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Reframing Problem
Using the 5 Whys to identify root causes as to why current services and products haven’t provided the right support that cater to students within the Asian community.
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Ideation
Sketches were done after synthesising my findings as a means of brainstorming ideas and development of my product. This allowed me to clearly see what ideas I wanted to implement, based on user problems and needs.
Concept Development (Group)
After individually investigating our chosen problem areas surrounding education, learning and development, we as a team came together to address the group concept for this project in which we had to work together to develop a solution for the final problem statement that encompasses insights from all our individual research.
Design Critique & Feedback
An initial design critique of each other’s low-fidelity prototypes was conducted. This was followed up by discussions of primary and secondary research data to identify main problem areas and intersections between our features and user persona needs. This assisted us in developing our final problem statement.
Problem
How might we enable students to further their learnings and explore alternative interests whilst keeping them motivated and accountable in using LinkedIn Learning?
Goals
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Help students reinforce their current skills
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Support students to explore alternative interest and skill sets
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Motivate students in their learning journey and making them accountable
Flow Map
Gathering insight from ideation and initial concept development to identify key user needs and further develop our product.
Wireframing
Creating the low-fidelity prototype of our product using wireframing to gain a better understanding of our product's structure. We worked on our individual features separately before coming together as a group to give each other internal feedback to keep our product consistent and ensure a smooth user journey.
Usability Evaluation
Ensuring our products met our user’s needs and problems in addition to providing them with a seamless and user-friendly experience. We were able to identify any problems that arose during early testing in order to prevent issues that may hinder the user’s experience.
User Testing
Utilising heuristic evaluation (HE) and data visualisation software Maze to generate compelling insights of user behaviour and any notable problems problems that arose during testing. As I worked on the prototyping for the community feature, gathering as many user insights for this feature was necessary.
HE Findings
Usability Testing Findings (Community)
Key Findings
Usability Testing Scores
Key Changes
After usability testing, we made key refinements on each feature to ensure they reflected back on the feedback we received from both designers and users.
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We adjust the style of the pop-up in the Linked-In To Uni Feature to match the existing design system.
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The Career Journey features initial design was confusing and not intuitive. Despite adding a drag-and-drop system to reduce user’s steps, this system was not utilised as users didn’t know it was there. To fix this, we added a pop-up to inform users and updated the design to show more information about the pathway.
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Adjustments were needed for the advanced filter position in the Community feature to make it more intuitive and easy to access in accordance to feedback received
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Design layout and consistency was adjusted in the Analytics feature to ensure it better linked to the other features and increased effectiveness of the page.
Solution
Our solution aims to increase motivation in students to learn new skills whilst also having a supportive community to aid them in their academic career. We believed LinkedIn Learning was an easily accessible platform that aided us in better meeting our target user’s needs and aligned with our initial problem statement.
Next Step
One thing I would love to do moving forward with this project is the chance to fully complete usability testing of our final iteration. While we did receive feedback from usability testing for our previous iterations, we did not have sufficient time to validate the changes we made to our final iteration. I believe having this chance to test our final product and make improvements could be highly beneficial from validation and A/B testing.
Reflection
During my process of working on this project, I explored the many ways of collecting and analysing data. The insights I gathered about my target demographic shed light on different experiences and stories that in the end provided me with the necessary information I needed in order to produce a solution for my users. I developed a lot more empathy for my users with the stories they shared.
As for the group aspect of the project, I appreciated the constant communication and effort from my teammates. I had wished we would have changed the way we approached the initial stage of the assignment as ideating with four somewhat related concepts and having to move forward with one idea was a bit difficult. And although we did run into challenges during our development stage, we maintained a strong level of team work and communication thus pushing us forward to creating a product to meet our users needs.
Each member of the team had their strengths and taught the remainder of the team immense amounts about that field. We have all emerged as greater designers with a widened breadth of skills. We went out of our comfort zone for usability testing and explored a variety of different potential designs.