Brief / A school project with the aim of designing a prototype for a new version of the online e - learning platform My Moodle of Linneuniversitet that makes university life easier and more enjoyable for the students.
Created / May, 2021
Client / Linneuniversitet (Linnaeus University)
Created / May, 2021
Client / Linneuniversitet (Linnaeus University)
Role / UX research & UI design
Tools / Figma & Illustrator
Methods / User Analysis, User Interviews & User tests, Sketching, Mockups
An online e - learning platform tailored to cater to the actual needs of university students while offering a pleasant modern experience with the potential of increasing student performance.
Software startpage with current courses displayed, schedule, upcoming deadlines & events.
Course page with module structure, each one containing course content, course literature assignments and quick access to all important information along with a statusbar to keep track of progress.
Purpose of projects
This project is designed to create a better solution for the e platform of Linnaeus University. For many students the online platform is the main source of interaction with the university and has a big impact on their student experience. A course platform that is easy to navigate allows students to organize their studies better, update themselves on any important news and focus on learning.
User Analysis
People become university students in very different points in their life which means the platform needs to be user friendly for a wide range of people in order to be inclusive. The students are studying a variety of topics. Students have varying technical ability and a percentage has functional disabilities such as ADHD, Dyslexia, Blindness. A percentage of the people may have swedish as a second language and are more reliant on visual cues to understand the functions. Having to look through multiple pages to find the information they need or worrying about missing things brings stress, frustration and can potentially make it harder for students to focus on their learning.
Process
The project started with a user study performed through interviews and user tests on the old platform. The participants were five current university students in different age groups with varying technical abilities chosen to represent the full spectrum of the target user audience. The study identified the user needs and most important features of a university e-learning platform that were later used to guide the creation of sketches, wireframes and the first prototype.
User Needs
- Keeping track of deadlines & schedule
- Keeping track of new information
- Communicating with teachers & other students
- Accessing course content
- Understanding where to find things
- Watching lectures
- Answering quizzes
- Handing in assignments
Features needed
- clear overview of courses, schedule & deadlines
- support for different content formats (video, text, images, quizzes)
- modern, clean & well structured design
- most relevant content first
- clear labeling
- side navigation for the modules to quickly navigate to other content without scrolling through masses of info.
- clear information architecture for course content
- calendar & reminders
- messaging function
Site Map
Results & Insights
The tests of the old platform (see snapshots below) deemed the module structure of the current platform a good solution for organizing course content. There is however a need to navigate to modules further down without scrolling past all of the content of the current module. There is currently no overview of deadlines and no combined schedule for the multiple courses of a student which makes it hard to keep track of dates. Some elements were deemed non-necessary and clutterly, such as being able to customize the width of the website design using a button, instead of just making the platform responsive. The user interface design was also deemed uninspiring, messy and outdated by test participants.
In order to meet the user needs the startpage was restructured to work as a better overview. There is a section where the student can see upcoming events and deadlines, an overview of the courses and the most important courseinfo. A status bar showing the progress was also included for motivational purposes. The distracting elements were completely removed. At the course page a navigational sidebar was added next to the course modules, only one module opens at each time and the layout of the modules were restructured
Snapshots from current platform
