In my design graduation project, I was given a problem statement “How might we help professionals master subjects they love or are curious about?“ I chose the Coursera app to integrate with this problem statement. In this case study, I will share my insights on my design process and the design decisions I made while adding a few useful features to the Coursera app.
So, here is drumrolldrumroll my masterpiece.
What’s the problem?
Problems faced by Coursera and other MOOCs
Coursera provides its learning service to learners across more than 200 universities, non-profit organizations, and businesses. With a user base of more than 92 million (2021).
This means that while people do excitedly sign up for MOOCs and they have seen a boost, they remain largely incomplete.
Finding The Problem
I was familiar with the Coursera website, so I tried the app. And since my goal was to help professionals master or explore a subject. I wanted to see how smooth is the current process.” So, I went through play store reviews.
After I tried the app, and read the reviews. I found out that Coursera was lacking in terms of
-course discovery,
-personalization,
-rarely include the direct conversation b/w the mentor and student.
-assessment has heavily relied on either quizzes or peer assessment, which in many cases have led to dubious results.
For a better understanding, I did some secondary research on MOOCs. Why their drop rate is high? Why MOOCs? What psychological factors are involved in measuring the satisfaction and effectiveness of the course?
Endless questions and hours of research paper helped me in understanding MOOCs and their purpose. And also helped me understand how to conduct research and present its findings.
Once, I was done with secondary research, I moved to primary research since I wanted both quantitative and qualitative data. I conducted both user surveys and telephonic interviews.
User Survey
I asked a few of my colleagues, and friends who use/used Coursera or other online learning platforms to share their thoughts on how conveniently they were able to find the course or skill they were looking for, how was their experience, and what were their pain points, etc.
The results:
Telephonic Interview
Then to have a deeper understanding of the user's frustration and pain points, I moved to telephonic interviews. Here are some user quotes.
by- Anmol Mishra
by- Tarun Daharwal
by- Megha Sharma
by- Charu Kulshrestha
Analyzing the insights
Now, that I had a rough idea of the problem, I wanted to make sure that I understood the reasoning behind the feedback I got from the survey.
The user survey helped me validate my assumptions on User pain points & gather new pain points, they are as follows
Pain Points
Discussion forums are not active for all courses.
The learning process needs to be more interactive.
The benefits of the course are limited to certificates.
Need some features to help users see the career path after completing the course.
Course suggestions and recommendations should be prioritized according to user needs.
Even after understating the user pain points, I wanted to define the problem but the problem statement I was working on was quite broad, “How might we help professionalsmaster subjects they love or are curious about?“
So, to narrow down the scope of my problem, I first dissected my Problem Statement and defined it.
Dissecting the Problem Statement.
Key Words
Professionals (20-40 yrs): Individuals who are currently employed and are looking to either upskill or learn new skills via an online learning video platform. Housewives, students, and retired personnel are not considered within the scope of the problem.
Master Subject: If there are multiple skills needed to learn the subject, the user is aware and willing to learn them in order to have dominance over the subject.
Explore Subject: To be aware of the skill requirement, & opportunities one would get after understanding the subject.
Coursera: Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, certifications, and degrees in various subjects.
Sticky notes to understand the difference b/w the mindset of the user when she/he came to master a subject and explore a subject
Persona Analysis
The Coursera student body is massive and after reading a lot about Coursera Product Design, and their user base, and considering the scope of my problem statement correlating them with the pain points. I decided to cater the design solution to these two main use cases.
Problems I chose to work on
Personalization
Offboarding: Helping the user, answer What Next?
Course Discovery
Since we found our 3 Horcrux, let's destroy them.
Ideating Solution
Let the games begin
Personalization
Why Personalization? So, users who want to learn out of curiosity or necessity might benefit from individuals who have or had the same goals.
For personalization, I simply asked the user to build a learning profile, after he is done with the onboarding. (why after onboarding, to avoid drops). This way we can feed this data into the Coursera recommendation system and personalize users’ feeds.
I will implement this by making a basic low-fi on paper and taking developers’ and TL’s feedback and confirming a deadline plus success metric. (I’ve taken a hypothetical one here)
This solution can be implemented, easily within 1-2 weeks. Assuming within the stipulated time period the recommendation system is working smoothly and will be able to recommend courses relevant to users learning profiles.
The success metric, If after AB testing the activation (clicking on the course page) increased to 5% due to the user getting relevant recommendations.
Possible drawback- The metric to decide the feature success is not data-backed. (it’s a random no)
Here, is the workflow. (I, later on, took out time and exp, as I didn’t want too many screens on the learning profile.
Here is the final look, and prototype.
Offboarding
It kept bothering me that the online learning experience usually ends with a certificate, having a certificate helps the user to showcase her skills. Who will clear their doubts?
For that, I came up with Talk to alumni and Curated content for the user.
Once the user has finished the course and had gotten the certificate, she will unlock a special bonus.
Feature- Talk to alumni
List of folks who have completed the course 6 months or within 1 year of her completion. She can connect with them by tapping their names, and connecting with them within the app or on LinkedIn.
To implement it, I made user profiles accessible and connect with their LinkedIn profiles.
Articles and video suggestions relevant to the user’s learning goal, for example, if aiming for job switch articles suggesting
how to crack the interview,
other skills to be combined,
job hunt, etc.
After the course certificate is given, below the certificate both options will be provided.
The process of implementing this solution will be the same, first getting feedback, then confirming deadlines and metrics. (I’ve taken a hypothetical one here as well)
The solution is a bit more complex than the previous one, so would require more time to incorporate it, About 4 weeks, assuming there is enough content and guidance material. Plus, the alumni suggestion needs to consider the time, location, and language barriers.
It will be a success, if
- User is able to talk to alumni and build a network.
- Feels more confident than confused after completing the course
Possible drawbacks
- If the majority of people are not interested in guiding others or avoid it simply because they don’t know how to guide others in the first place. Especially in the courses where even the discussion forums are inactive.
Rough, workflow on how the feature will work
Course Discovery
My solution for course discovery is directly related to learning profiles, Using the information which was fed into the learning profiles we can help users create a learning path. To provide the user with more structured learning, where he feels guided instead of lost or overwhelmed.
To keep it simple and it can be explained in a workflow. Since, it involves multiple features, such as counseling, mock text, course revisions, and flashcards. It would require multiple workflows.
My aim was to make sure, the user knows about his career, the skill he would need, where he stands, and where is lacking so that he takes a conscious decision rather than just hoarding skills and certificates.
To implement this solution, a good team discussion, taking their feedback, and weighing possible drawbacks against success metrics into consideration will set a deadline. here I reckon we would need to first divide it into multiple MVPs and gather data then iterate, then reiterate and the cycle goes on.
Conclusion
Introspection time. Honestly, I think I could’ve done a lot better, this case study helped me understand my shortcomings. So, here are my 4 (cross my heart hope to die) honest facts.
Design process- The Holi grail here helped me take an informed and structured approach.
User Survey- The research papers I read helped me immensely in forming the survey questions. It would’ve been better if I tagged Coursera handles wherever I posted my user surveys. it could’ve helped me gather a more diversified sample.
Soft Skills- Connecting to the user and asking questions without leading them & myself to a biased conclusion. This experience helped me improve my soft skills. ( but it made me curious, about the term “noisy data” would want to learn more about it. )
UI skills- I had limited time so, I kept everything simple and plain. Even though I am filled with regrets. I will work on it more. (Can’t wait to switch to a full-time design role so that I can put my 10 hrs into learning and creating better designs)
