The Student Forum Reimagined
Adin Esberg
Defining The Problem: How Might We Improve Student Experience of Using Online Forums to Achieve Learning Goals?
We all need help with school sometimes. In most college environments, students are thrown into overwhelming environments with thousands of peers and feel intimidated. Between lectures and discussions, office hours, and other campus resources, many students just don't know where to start. While many classes utilize online tools to communicate, there is not one platform that is easy to learn, efficient to use, or helpful enough.
What to Address
From preliminary user research surveying the target group (college students), we solidified a few important insights about currently used platforms:
1) Students are confused upon first use of the interface
2) Students quickly get overwhelmed by notifications
3) Direct interaction with course staff is the most helpful
4) Students find it difficult to filter through hundreds of questions
User Personas
Ideation
After conducting preliminary research and creating two user personas, I considered many interface changes to improve the learning experience on these platforms. The ideation process led me to think about simplifying the home page, managing notifications better, organizing the search function, or implementing a guide for new users. I converged on the idea to reorganize the search function of Piazza, because it will help students filter through results, interact with peers and staff, and feel less overwhelmed by the vast pool of posts.
Gray-Box Wirefram & Usability Testing
CLICK for my wireframe
After conducting usability testing, I came out with a few new insights:
- Having just the post's title with the "full post?" button was a good addition
- The sort feature is useful
- High number of search results is still overwhelming
-Keeping "Important" and "Search" separate makes it easier to navigate
HIGH(ER) FIDELITY STUDENT FORUM PROTOTYPE
Introducing the newly organized and sorted forum search! The easily understandable and accessible tool for students to navigate their classes. We know that getting through college can't be done alone, so this tool will allow you to get help without the anxiety of raising your hand in class or sorting through questions from a lecture of 500.
