iSchools

Summary

Project info

Role: Product Designer

Timeline, Year: 8 weeks, 2022

Location: Kampala, Uganda

Platforms: Responsive Web, Cross-platform Mobile (Android & iOS)

Overview

iSchools is a learning platform for African students (starting with the Ugandan market). It enables learners access content, tests, and exams via a web and mobile application.

Challenge

iSchools had launched their MVP but were struggling with acquiring and retaining users. The goal was to design the next version of the platform to improve engagement*.*

Success was to be measured in terms of growth in active users and revenue for the business.

Process summary

📚 Empathize through research

⛳️ Define the problem to solve

🧠 Ideate to generate solutions

👨🏽‍💻 Prototype to make ideas tangible

👍🏼 Test to learn and iterate

View details below

Methodologies

User Interviews

User Journey Mapping

Information Architecture

Usability Testing

Results

The updated learning app uses gamification to encourage learning, lowers the barrier of entry for learners, and adapts to the technological limitations of the target users.

Research

Together with members of the iSchools team, I conducted user interviews with students and parents.

The aim of these interviews was to understand their attitudes towards online learning. I also tested the existing platform with them.

The following were the key findings from the research.

Challenge #1 Online learning was still new to most of them

A large number of those interviewed (~60%) had not used any online learning platform before, and when they tried the existing app, didn’t find it engaging enough.

Challenge #2 Time after school is mostly spent on play and chores

For an app that will mostly be used after school hours, it was important to know what other activities were competing for their attention.

Challenge #3 Devices are often shared by parents and siblings; data costs impacts their ability to stay online

Internet penetration in the target market (Uganda) is low so data costs are high and smartphone devices are often shared by members of a household.

Challenge #4 Parents wanted to prove value for their money

Since they were already paying fees at school, getting value for their money was important if they were going to be for additional tuition through our app.

I redefined these challenges into opportunities and began thinking of how we might:

• Make the platform accessible for new internet users.

• Create an engaging experience learners would want to return to.

• Design for device sharing and poor data access.

• Help parents realize the value they’re getting.

To document all these findings from the user research, I created a persona and user journey for each of the user groups — students and parents.