Evercrest, a institution with six schools providing various grades in different cities across the country. the CEO came to me asking for collaboration with their design and develop team to implement the idea of a cohesive website for professional development programs of teachers at Evercrest.
/ Only focusing on extrinsic motivations.
/ Inflexible program timing of external platforms.
/ Lack of clear curriculum direction.
/ Insufficient access to all the information of the course such as learning contracts.
/ Inadequate assessment mechanisms.
/ Long and complicated forms to create a class.
/ Complicated monitoring of teacher competencies.
Evercrest, a multi-school institution in multiple cities, approached me for collaboration on a unified website for teacher professional development programs, addressing specific challenges, during the design thinking process, I found out more challenges and tried to solve them.
Project Timeline
To achieve a better understanding of the users, and their needs, I set out few research goals and decided on the best research methods:
/ Understand current solutions
Theoretical background
/ Learn as much as possible about users
Surveys and user interviews
/ Gather users' insights
Focus group
/ Categorise information in group related filed
Card sorting
/ Learn as much as possible about the effectiveness of the design
Usability testing
Theoretical Background
I used Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to design engaging website. SCT emphasizes learning from others and being part of a community. It also highlights building confidence and a supportive environment. By applying these SCT principles, I aimed to make the online courses not only informative but also fun and supportive for all teachers:
Making learning interesting with videos and real examples to make.
Creating a community feel with discussion forums and group projects.
Helping learners by group projects to copy good behaviors from each other.
Keeping learners interested with helping memory, and add fun stuff like games.
Boosting confidence by giving clear instructions, achievable goals, and feedback.
Pairing learners up to help each other out.
Surveys and Interviews
To collect data about the most relevant and common needs of teachers in the community and find out how they cope with their challenges, surveys and interviews were conducted.
Top Insights
/ Lack of clear curriculum direction.
/ Lack of intrinsic motivations.
/ Insufficient access to all the information of the course such as learning contracts.
/ Neglecting individual differences.
Focus Group
I included professionals, top teachers, and university professors in a focus group to gather and assess ideas. They brainstormed and evaluated proposals, helping us make well-considered and inclusive decisions that take various perspectives into account.
Top Insights
/ Designing a forum for self-reflection after observing the class.
/ Adding emotion recognition software.
/ Sharing examples Teaching in the profiles of lecturers.
/ Adding Pre-test, Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment mechanisms.
To redefine the goal and narrow down its scope based on the insights gained from users, persona was created.
To better understand how the teacher would use "Evercrest", I created user flow.
To validate initial design solution, insuring the design meets users' needs, a mid-fidelity prototype was made. Then the wireframes were iterated.
To design high-fidelity prototype, insights gained from usability testing and design critiques were used. The following sections highlight key improvements that were made.
/ Professional Copywriting: Engage a skilled copywriter to enhance the case study's communication and engagement.
/ Content Refinement: Revise and improve the content's structure and relevance to align with the objectives and provide valuable insights.
