K20 Research Center
Online Education Resource (OER) Platform
Modernizing K20's LEARN, an online learning resource platform, to improve the experience
Role
Lead Product Designer
Research, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Prototyping & Testing
Delivery
User flows, Prototypes, User Testing
Tools
Adobe XD, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lucidcharts, Qualtrics XM
Timeframe
Jan – Dec 2020
Summary
In this project, our team embarked on the mission of modernizing K20’s LEARN platform, transitioning it from its older legacy version. The online educational resource platform facilitated the sharing of lessons, games, and activities. Unfortunately, users encountered challenges with its usability. The main goal was to develop a contemporary and user-friendly platform that would improve the user experience and boost adoption rates. I concentrated on crafting intuitive user interfaces with enhanced user control. The result of the redesign efforts was truly noteworthy, resulting in a substantial increase of over 1.8 million users in the platform’s user base.
The Challenge
I confronted a series of pivotal challenges that demanded innovative solutions. Our foremost objectives revolved around augmenting user control, enhancing collaboration dynamics, and refining resource management. Users, specifically resource creators, had voiced their concerns over the rigidity of the document editor utilized for crafting resources. Additionally, they sought more interactive team collaboration functionalities to facilitate seamless communication and content generation. Moreover, users expressed discontent with the manual resource approval process, along with the limitations imposed on search outcomes. Product managers saw these limitations as restrictive to the product growth and hoped for a product that is more marketable. These challenges underscored the need for a comprehensive rethinking of our approach to deliver a streamlined and user-centric solution.
Solution
Our team set out to build an entirely new version of the application with:
- An improved search feature to find documents efficiently
- An advanced document creation features for more user control
- A document card with a better layout for decision-making
- A publication process to facilitate document review
- A dashboard to visualize document usage
In addition, we set out to define a design system that will provide a seamless experience across all applications.
Our team set out to build an entirely new version of the application with:
- An improved search feature to find documents efficiently
- An advanced document creation features for more user control
- A document card with a better layout for decision-making
- A publication process to facilitate document review
- A dashboard to visualize document usage
In addition, we set out to define a design system that will provide a seamless experience across all applications.
Our team set out to build an entirely new version of the application with:
- An improved search feature to find documents efficiently
- An advanced document creation features for more user control
- A document card with a better layout for decision-making
- A publication process to facilitate document review
- A dashboard to visualize document usage
In addition, we set out to define a design system that will provide a seamless experience across all applications.
Our team set out to build an entirely new version of the application with:
- An improved search feature to find documents efficiently
- An advanced document creation features for more user control
- A document card with a better layout for decision-making
- A publication process to facilitate document review
- A dashboard to visualize document usage
In addition, we set out to define a design system that will provide a seamless experience across all applications.
Our team set out to build an entirely new version of the application with:
- An improved search feature to find documents efficiently
- An advanced document creation features for more user control
- A document card with a better layout for decision-making
- A publication process to facilitate document review
- A dashboard to visualize document usage
In addition, we set out to define a design system that will provide a seamless experience across all applications.
Results
Users were satisfied with the new platform. The final user group session indicated that user satisfaction with the redesign and new functionalities was 95%. The platform received higher usage with users from around the world in various countries. In addition to completing another successful and complex redesign, the evaluation and user testing sessions reminded me of the importance of using quantitative data to validate qualitative data to manage user feedback and the project’s progress. Development understood that some complex features require continuous improvement, multiple iterations, and users as co-designers. Understanding user needs was the main factor that made this project successful. Team collaboration was exceptional during the process.