Transforming Microsoft Teams for enhanced remote learning support
Enhancing students' online learning experience in remote settings with academic and wellness support.
Deliverables
User interviews
Activity analysis
Persona
User flow
Wireframes
Tools Used
Adobe XD
Duration
10 weeks
Team
Mary-Ann Trieu—Project Manager, UX/UI Designer
Jeremy Frith—UX Researcher, Branding
Alwin Raymundo—Ideation, UI Designer
Natalie Tan—Ideation, UI Designer
Students struggled to adapt to online learning during the pandemic
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, the delivery of post-secondary education had to adapt and change drastically, with many institutions having to transition to a remote learning environment. However, online learning can have several significant barriers for students, such as adapting to the software and managing different methods of content delivery. We conducted this study to investigate and understand the complexities of remote learning.
How might we enhance the education experience of post-secondary students during the pandemic?
Introducing academic and wellness support in Microsoft Teams
We created an additional function in Microsoft Teams that focuses on academic and wellness support for students. The function helps students manage their schoolwork and time while giving emotional support and comfort with remote learning.
Conducting interviews
We interviewed 10 participants from Canada and Hong Kong that were post-secondary students immersed in remote learning. Our goal was to understand the pain points in students’ online learning experiences bred from transitioning in-person learning to remote or hybrid classes. We also aimed to discover the different tools participants use for remote schools to uncover design and usability-focused issues.
Here are some questions we asked during the interviews:
- Walk me through your typical workflow when you are working on assignments, from finding the assignment brief to starting.
- How did you prepare yourself when you found out that everything is online learning?
- How do you feel about the level of engagement or discussion that is provided in a remote class setting?
- How helpful has your school been in giving support and resources for students to do well in terms of academics or well-being?
- Can you explain to me your thoughts on how remote classes affect the full experience of quality education?
Synthesizing the data
We organized the qualitative data we collected as a spreadsheet and analyzed the comments participants mentioned regarding their remote learning experience.
Understanding our users' pain points
We conducted an activity analysis to identify the common pain points linked to the type of activity conducted by multiple participants. Each of these activities is linked to a theme/mode to group activities with similar functions.
Condensing the research into main takeaways
Our research, including the user interviews and activity analysis, has brought to light multiple gaps in the current remote learning system that are contributing to a negative learning experience for post-secondary students.
🎓
Lack of accessible support
“
I feel like there isn't a lot of support for me as a third year... if we need something, we have questions like here's how to reach out, but in terms of like mental health services and just regular services that the school was providing, I'm feeling a little bit a little bit lacklustre.
👥
Difficultly coordinating group meetings
“
Scheduling time outside of that to meet up has been rather difficult, especially with international students being on a 12-hour time difference. So for them meeting at noon is midnight. And they can't meet anytime after that, because that's 3 am and things like that.
💬
Difficulty learning due to lack of discussion
“
I think being alone, or learning alone has been the most difficult part of transitioning into online learning, because I don't think I'm learning much and I think part of that is because I'm learning alone, I feel like when school was like an in-person thing I learned a lot more from my peers and like seeing what they were doing, and how they were handling assignments.
We wanted to propose a solution that alleviates the complexity of applying
After analyzing the data from our survey and interviews, we brainstormed on the following features to address the pain points of our users.
💾
Making finding and accessing content simple
We suggest a simple system for accessing content to reduce frustration and confusion. This way, students won't miss important course material, ensuring a smoother learning experience.
📨
Collaboration with groups
Creating a system that is more inviting for students to participate in discussions.
🗒️
Creating a system that is more inviting for students to participate in discussions
Creating a system that makes the students feel heard, understood, and supported.
Representing the target users
We condensed all the key information we identified and transformed it into a persona, listing the scenario, needs, and pain points for users.
Generating the flow
We separated our flow into two main sections which are: academic support and wellness support.
📚
Academic support flow
- Message, share documents and call in groups with classmates
- View a list of tutors/mentors for each individual class and book sessions
- Showcase a list of resources available for students
👩⚕️
Wellness support flow
- Students can connect with consolers for emotional and wellness support
- Raise awareness on available support provided by the school
- Filter between different counselors to meet user's specific needs
Sketches + design studio workshop
We brainstormed what might the application look like and what features should be included. We then converged our ideas by using a dot voting system in order to determine as a group what features should be prioritized. This design studio workshop was effective for visualizing how we wanted our solution to be.
Refining our sketches
Based on the features we all agreed upon, we iterated our sketches to draft a vision of our final solution.
Background
This project was made for Hackville 2021, Sheridan's flagship hackathon and was awarded 3rd place amongst 100+ participants. The product was then later reworked on as a personal project. Our project is also featured on Hackville's Instagram 🌟
My role in this project was a UX researcher and UX/UI designer. I created the surveys and competitive analysis while being a part of the ideating, wireframing and prototyping process.
Introducing additional features into Teams for academic and wellness support
We built a plugin added into Microsoft Teams to provide additional features for post-secondary students in terms of academic success and well-being.
Contact members for academic support
Students can schedule meetings and communicate with professors and mentors to keep in track with school.
View and book appointments with school counsellors
Students can check the profiles of school counsellors and arrange calls to seek mental health assistance and emotional support.
Learn through resources
View additional resources related to academics or well-being to seek for more support.
Takeaways from this project
Validating the problem with research
Diving deep into the different research tools helped us troubleshoot the area of focus for our problem and visualize the important features.
Importance of time management and organization
As a team, we knew we had to cover a lot of deliverables within a short time frame. Crafting research plans and preparing for interviews took the most time. Having a detailed schedule plan from the get-go helped us tremendously with keeping our project on track.
Pushing usability testing
Moving forward with this project, we would conduct user tests in order to identify usability problems then iterate on the design based on the data or feedback given.
Curious for more?
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