KP Design Challenge: Coursera
Transforming lives through learning
UI/UX Design
Duration
3 days
Skills
Figma, Visual Design, UI/UX Design
An online learning platform, Coursera offers access from courses to degree programs, continuing efforts to reduce barriers to education. As COVID-19 is still amidst our atmosphere and remote learning is being more normalized with time, such platforms have become a crucial part to everyday life of all ages. Being both a graduate student during the pandemic and working from home, loss of social relationships and a sense of community was a negative effect of what was usually present on a traditional school campus and office. Interacting with my peers I have yet to meet in-person yet became natural and intuitive and an important part of my school and work life.
Coursera Redesign Figma Prototype - Personal Statement 1 - Personal Statement 2
Goal
How can we encourage interactions amongst Coursera learners to promote community within an asynchronous learning environment?
Solution
Redesigning Coursera Community website's "Subject Discussion" forum to encourage a culture of participation.
Research Process
Studies on Online Learning
Exchanging ideas, information, and feelings heighten retention.
For communities to adapt a structure of interaction that is collaborative in nature, the instructor must mold, model, and encourage the desired behavior, and the students must be able and willing to participate regularly. (Link)
More opportunities for flexibility and self-pacing.
The current increase in its adoption by universities is born of their desire to direct their actions toward alignment with both local and global practices and policies to overcome the spread of Covid-19 pandemic and maintenance of academic calendar. (Link)
Competitive Analysis
I analysed other similar educational tech platforms (UDemy, Skillshare) and non-traditional learning communities (Reddit, YouTube, Facebook Groups) to get an idea of similar user flows and journeys in terms of searching, participating, and sharing. Both Udemy and Skillshare had discussion forums, however Udemy's was only inclusive among instructors. Skillshare's was only pertinent to their course, but participation was there as students shared their projects and peers replied with comments and questions, like Coursera's. Searching for specific help and questions unrelated to courses pertained to the idea of sub-communities, especially within Reddit and Facebook Groups. Although YouTube is not known for having a discussion forum, I always favored their algorithmic front page to be exposed to new or related topics.
Current State
When a user first arrives to the Subject Discussions page of Coursera's Community website, a length of discussion posts are revealed. This may not come relevant to a user as these collection of posts span across all topics and subjects. The user can then take themselves to a Subject Discussions Group page, where it is another list of posts ordered by date. There is currently a Network and Social Discussion Subject Discussion group however there is only 82 members and minimal interaction on the page.
Ideation Station
Brainstorming how community can still exist within an asynchronous learning environment thus deciding to focus on sub-communities. (Link)
User Flows
With Coursera's information density, how can we guide the user to the information they want while giving a feeling of belonging? We want to save the user time and not take too long finding the help or information they need or they may feel discouraged, give up, then find help from somewhere else. We want to start from a high-level overview and provide easy pathways for Coursera's learners. My user flow focused on finding information, on a specific subject, unrelated to coursework through Coursera's Community Subject Discussions page. (Link)
Lo-fi Wireframing
I focused on creating low fidelity wireframing the Subject Discussions page, Subject pages, and potential conversation pages below those based on the user flow shown above as a first iteration of the redesign. (Link)
Solution: A culture of sharing
Developing sub-communities or smaller groups can provide a more personal experience and connect individuals with similar interests better. Organizing design ques to better information structure can help the user find their solution faster. In conclusion, community can be critical to student success and satisfaction in online courses.
Finding & Searching: Levels of Granularity
Visual indicators of information architecture, such as the carousel of rotating subjects for a high-level overview and image-based navigation, helps the user build familiar pathways. This can also be helpful for touch navigation on mobile devices. Creating such hierarchy helps build sub-communities and smaller groups to interact and integrate with each other, creating feelings of belonging and community.
Reflection: In Isolation We Connect
Working on this redesign for Coursera's Community website allowed me to work over my own experiences in self-learning and my usage of online communities, especially admist a pandemic. Instructional and educational technology becomes more critical as the digital age advances and I hope I soon to be a part of that development.
With this case study, there could have been more iterations with actual user testing, especially since these models are relevant to many in today's academic circumstances. I also wished I had a better understanding and knowledge of Coursera's subject structure to better foundate the information architecture and my thinking process.