Learning app
End-to-end process
B2B
2023
Project overview
Minders is a startup providing professional educators with tools to help course participants maximize their learning. They aim to design learning experiences with high engagement and completion rates, utilizing spaced repetition, active learning, and social element,s setting them apart from their competition.
As a UX/UI Designer, I worked end-to-end design process of the complete app following a tight deadlines and little research.
Problem
Course participants
forget
75% in a week
This is especially true of complex information delivered in long, passive learning sessions. Interviews with customers supported they struggle to ensure course participants retain learned knowledge. Course participants expressed that “life takes over” and that finding time to practice between physical sessions and after a course is difficult.
Eventually, this results in costly knowledge getting lost.
Design
Designing spaced-repitition for bite-sized learning
Course participants needed a learning structure that fit their busy schedules while reinforcing learning. To support this, I designed learning journeys using spaced repetition, a proven method to combat memory decay. The learning journeys were a series of activities combining short texts, images, or videos and ended with interactive engagements to support active learning.
This gave participants flexibility, allowing them to complete tasks during short breaks in their day and reinforcing learning without overwhelming them.
Avoiding endless flows
In an early iteration of the design flow each activity had a primary and a secondary action with the primary action prompting the user to begin the next activity and the secondary exiting to journey overview. This (of course) resulted in users continuing to the next activity. This caused to issues:
Before
After
Smiley engagement
A quick reflection allowing for fast feedback while keeping the momentum going
Scale engagement
Similar to smiley but more versatile use with custom labels.
Poll engagement
Shows previous answers to give participants perspective and a social proof.
Journal engagement
Gives user's a moment to think critically about their learnings and saves it to their journal.
Buddy engagement
User's share their reflections with their buddy groups establishing social commitment and collective learning.
Designing interactive features that drive user engagement and retention
I designed a range of interactive features that encouraged course participants to stay actively engaged with the content and made learning fun and personalized. Course participants were encouraged to relfect on and share what they learned, helping to reinforce their learnings.
By designing diverse engagement types I ensured that learning is active and varied, and kept users motivated.
Testing
Users were uncertain if they were sharing with buddies
I knew the designs were shipped too fast, and I was particularly concerned about the buddy engagement. During testing (in production), users responded positively to the buddy engagement as a feature and the variety in engagement types emphasizing some requiring less mental effort and others requiring deep reflection. However, some users were uncertain if their answers were being shared with others or kept private in their journals. Adding to the confusion, there were technical issues with lagging messages in the buddy chat.
This issue was cemented further when I did a co-design workshop, where most groups focused their work on the buddy engagement flow.
Design
Diversifying buddy and journal engagement.
To resolve the lagging messages and the uncertainty around buddy vs. journal engagements, I kept both engagements within the activity screen avoiding the buddy chat altogether. I gave the engagements the same format but with distinct colors and labels making it easily distinguishable and accessible. Instead of using the minders bot message to confirm to the user where the answers are saved, I used a snack bar. A snack bar that is colored and moving is more likely to catch attention.
As a bonus, they could now see the activity content while typing with only a scroll, and the issue was resolved within a single sprint.
Retrospective
Interactive learning journeys that participants enjoy using
Working solo with tight deadlines, the engineering team was my closest allies. We collaborated closely and it gave me valuable understanding of how design decisions impact development time and product architecture.
If I could do something differently I would have tried to argue for more time on certain features. In the end it cost us more time and money fixing it down the road. Despite the tight dealines and changing demands, I made it work as best as i could, but I needed that time.
%
Free courses typically see between 5-15% completion rates, whereas corporate training typically sees between 30-60%.
%
This improved the overall user experience, directly contributing to the retention of course participants in a competitive market.
Proven engagement
Course participants engaged with all features including polls, journals, and buddy discussions, showing robust engagement across the app’s features.
Effective design
I created a design system in Figma using variables, reusable components, and variants for effective documentation and consistency in the design.
