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UX: Designing for Education
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- [FINAL] P2PU Techsprint - Barcelona Mon, 2010-11-01 15:34
- [Class 7] Final presentation Sat, 2010-10-30 04:18
- [Class 6] Prototyping/Mock-up Thu, 2010-10-28 15:46
- [Class 4] Personas-based studies Sun, 2010-10-17 21:33
- [Class 5] UX Design plan Sat, 2010-10-16 19:09
[Class 7] Final presentation
Go back to: General discussion
Hi there,
We've defined the tools that will be used to do the final presentation.
http://gomockingbird.com/ - for graphical mockups
http://pads.dreamfish.com/3QKK6SCacu - Etherpad for comments
The outcome of this project will be presented to the P2PU team, in Barcelona, on October 29th.
We should have this completed by Thursday, 28th. Our focus is to improve the general interface of sharing knowledge.
Please take a look at the questions written on the Etherpad to get more familiar with the motivation.
Hi Joao, what do you think about these personas? are they clear and different enough?
http://pads.dreamfish.com/3QKK6SCacu
Euge, those are terrific--thanks for writing them up. As Joao would say, you rocked it!
Here is a brief review of other learning platforms, please edit or comment it! (I know we don't have enough time!)
http://pads.dreamfish.com/FlY2R1tZa8
Hello there!
Great stuff being posted on our Etherpads. It's getting more and more awesome ^^
As I commented earlier, I'll be online all they long. So I'd be glad to have your guys comments and drawings during the day.
Let's rock it very very much!
If you need instant-messaging contact with me, I'm online on our 1st etherpad chat.
All ready to our presentation/brainstorming session with the guys from P2PU!
I'll keep you posted of any news. I'm traveling today. :D
Hi Joao! Do you still need the mockups? I'm working on them. What do you think?
Have a safe trip! :)
So, here I'll post the outcomes of the last assignment:
PERSONAS
These personas were made based on personal experience, thoughts and observation. No research data was used to describe them.
a) Course organizers - which are people that understand well about specific areas of technology, and would like to share their knowledge.
ORGANIZER 1
-photo
http://obamapacman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Kevin-Rose-Digg-Founde...
-name, age, gender
Peter is 37 years old.
-location
Australia, Sydney
-family ties
He lives with his wife in Sydney; they don't have kids.
-profession
He is an experienced web designer working as a freelancer.
-lifestyle
He works from home for several clients. Sometimes he needs to travel to meet a client.
-personality traits
He is a patient and organized person, he likes to help other people and he also likes to teach.
-media and technology choices
He uses technology regularly. He enjoys using his laptop and mobile phone (for everyday life and work)
-goals, behaviour or motivations in relation to life, and to the product
He has done some online courses, so now he wants to teach a new course about web development and he admires a good learning platform. He likes to keep it simple. He also likes to provide a lot of material (multimedia) for his students. He likes to code and to share his work. He blogs about his work.
-differentiators
He is a technology-driven teacher. He enjoys videos, collaborative tools, intergration of his activities with other platforms, etc.
ORGANIZER 2
-photo
Anna http://www.hcamag.com/files/Image/Human%20Capital/istock%20college%20gir...
-name, age, gender
Anna, 28, female.
-location
She is from Germany, but now she is getting a master's degree in Barcelona.
-family ties
She is single and she moved recently to Barcelona, Spain after studying Computer Science and Spanish in Germany.
-profession
Anna is a student and she is getting a master's degree in Interaction Design.
-lifestyle
She relies on a scholarship for her master's degree, so she is busy reading and learning most of the time.
-personality traits
She is very open about education, so she promotes material sharing and research.
-media and technology choices
She owns a laptop and a mobile phone, but she uses her laptop most of the time. Sometimes she needs to use the computer from her university (a basic one).
-goals, behaviour or motivations in relation to life, and to the product
She believes in open education, so she would like to share what she is learning right now with people around the globe and in different languages.
-differentiators
She wants to share what she is learning in German, English and Spanish.
b) Course students - which are people that would like to know more about specific areas of technology.
STUDENT 1
-photo
http://www.foroswebgratis.com/imagenes_foros/3/4/3/5/1/237942Felipe%20Co...
-name, age, gender
Alex, 20, male.
-location
México, DF.
-family ties
He is single and he lives alone.
-profession
He is studying graphic design.
-lifestyle
He enjoys traveling when he is not at school. He doesn't work.
-personality traits
He is an adventurer, but he is a very good student as well. He speaks English and Spanish.
-media and technology choices
He owns a laptop and a smartphone. He enjoys using social apps on his cellphone when he is traveling.
-goals, behaviour or motivations in relation to life, and to the product
He's never experienced an open course before, but he would like to do it now. He is always looking for something new (even related to his education)
-differentiators
He is active and has time to do courses apart from his classes. He just started university so he is not too busy this year.
STUDENT 2
-photo
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_poTKC38if4o/SxQarFUbqfI/AAAAAAAAH8k/MdrF3qKgvq...
-name, age, gender
Helen, 47, female.
-location
London, UK.
-family ties
She is married and has 2 kids.
-profession
She is a librarian and now she owns a bookstore. She wants to get involved with technology because she wants to use it for future projects for her book store.
-lifestyle
She is always reading and she is involved in every activity at the bookstore. She has a degree on Information architecture.
-personality traits
She is fully active and always looking to learn something interesting for her business.
-media and technology choices
She owns a PC, but she enjoys using her ebook reader (Kindle). She has a basic cellphone.
-goals, behaviour or motivations in relation to life, and to your product
She knows about IA, but she wants to get more involved with technology because she wants her business (book store) to grow.
-differentiators
She is not very technological, but she is always ready to learn. She has some vision problems, so she prefers simple and clean interfaces (in artefacts and applications).
_________________________________________________________________________________
We did a basic/quick review on some e-learning platforms based on Joao's list:
1-Moodle http://moodle.org/
An open source (free) modular php virtual learning software
2-Blackboard http://www.blackboard.com/
A family of virtual learning software
3-FirstClass http://www.firstclass.com/
Messaging and communications solution
4-It's Learning http://www.itslearning.eu/
Norwegian Closed Source System (written in ASP.NET)
5- Mingoville http://www.mingoville.com/pt.html
Introduction to the English language. Age 8 to 12 (Virtual World and Language games)
6- Live Mocha http://www.livemocha.com/
For learning languages.
NOTE: Because this is a quick review, I may be missing some features about each platform, but the most important features are listed below.
REFERENCES: This *** shows the prominent elements on each interface.
____________________________________________________________________________
1-MOODLE
____________________________________________________________________________--------
I had a course example, so this is what you can see as a student.
Student's side:
The home of the student's view of a course has this features:
Brief description of the course
Search through forums
Activities
Administration space
*** Course categories (table of contents/modules)
*** Main Menu (Announcements, forum, pre-registration form) made by the organizer/teacher
*** A list of topics (order by date ascending, so the newest topic is at the bottom of the page)
Latest news
Calendar
Upcoming events
Recent activity
____________________________________________________________________________
2-BLACKBOARD
____________________________________________________________________________--------
I got the information from their website:
Student's side:
Alerts/Notifications (web and mobile)
Mobile learning
Live webinars
Recorded webinars
Course wikis
Blogs and journals
Group tools for collaboration and communication
Mash-ups (youtube, slideshare, etc)
Multimedia content
Accessibility settings
Advanced search
Teacher's side:
Course files
Table of contents/modules
Manage content across courses
Messages
Instructor dashboard
____________________________________________________________________________
3- FIRST CLASS
_____________________________________________________________________________----
No demo available, so the information I got is from their website.
Student's side:
Messages platform (email, instant messaging)
Social networking: show and share: thoughts, interests, photos, bookmarks, files, etc.
____________________________________________________________________________
4- IT'S LEARNING
_____________________________________________________________________________
The is a demo available, but I did not received the demo link (probably the demo request is not working) so the information I got is from their website.
Teacher's side:
Horizontal menu: Dashboard, courses, projects, calendar, messages, mentor, e-portfolio, search, my settings, administration.
Course Home ("courses" item from the horizontal menu)
Status and follow up
Working portfolios
Assessment portfolio
Grade books
Attendance reports
Behavior
Summary (overview of the course)
Assignment reports
Personal reports (of personal activities)
e-portfolio ("e-portfolio" item from the horizontal menu)- Customizable
About me
My blog (posts, comments)
Categories
Participants
Groups
Course settings
Trashcan
Links
Planner
Table of contents/modules
Student Monitor (of activities)
Student's side:
Personal Dashboard (customizable): RSS, privacy, style, to-do list, files, links, images, etc)
Design themes
Blog
General
-Accessibility (customizable) settings: language, standards, timezones, etc.
-Tasks list for deadlines, assignments, tasks and tests (different for students and for teachers)
-Favorites (courses, material, tasks, etc.)
____________________________________________________________________________
5- MINGOVILLE
_____________________________________________________________________________
Demo available, some features:
Student's side:
Exercises
Multimedia content (voice, video, animations)
Evaluation reports
Reward system (points for activities and educational games)
Social
Chat
Customization (of the main character in this case)
Contests (among students with prizes)
Recreation (educational games)
____________________________________________________________________________
6- LIVE MOCHA
_____________________________________________________________________________
I have an account on this site . This is not a teacher/student platform, this is a community- driven one. Some features:
Student's side:
Reward system (mocha points for helping other members, for completing activities, etc)
Activity monitor
Social media (e.g. sharing a profile on twitter, facebook, etc.)
Community (Users can help with other users assignments, review and rate them)
Comments/rating on assignments
Messages between users
Personal account, privacy settings, messaging and alerts.
3- ANALYSIS OF CURRENT PLATFORM
Questions from the chat session:
- do you guys think that having text descriptions is the best way to lay these tools out?
- wouldn't icons work better?
- Having them on top of the screen - is it the best place to put them?
- What about color, are they adequate?
- do the colors segregate?
- would there be any improvements to the distance between the buttons?
- is the course title in the best position?
- what about breadcrumbs, couldn't they be a nice feature?
- we have to think about the IA (information architecture) too, are they grouped by any criteria?
- does the my account, my courses and my actions need to be away from the other buttons?
- Is the header occupying too much space?
- Does the scrollbar help or irritates the user?
- Is the search field efficient where it is? Is it global? Or specific?
- horizontal or vertical menu?
-should the user be able to customize their view--change text size, contrast, color scheme?
- Should the course organizer be able to add images to posts or the course header?
- Should users be able to include images in posts?
- Do the texts have good spacing?
- definitely we need some indication about where we are in the site (breadcrumbs, etc)
- Can the user customize his posts with pictures or text style?
- Are sans serif fonts the most indicated types of font for long texts?
- WYSIWYG for comments?
- What about screen readability? Is it efficient?
- Are the fonts too small?
- Do the links on the top menu need to be that big? Do they need to occupy a noble area of the screen as they currently do?
- Wouldn't the visual identity (logo) work better on a vertical alignment?
- What about the course material, do they have any order criteria?, some info about the material (file size, format, maybe a preview, etc)
- Is it really necessary to have a fade-in/fade-out animation on the My account - My courses - My actions buttons?
- Is there need to keep the rounded corners on every button?
- Why isn't there any difference between the links on these menus?
- Why is the course visual identity only valued on the Course home?
- Why isn't there an avatar for the course?
- can we improve the course home so we can have all useful information?
- Couldn't the footer be used to allocate other infos?
- can we add social networks activity to the course?
- Should there be any different colors on the footer?
- Do I as a user need the My Account, My Courses, and My Actions buttons everywhere in the course?
- How might we better facilitate direct interaction between students...
- How can I manage participating in different courses more efficiently?
- can we add some collaborative tool other than the forum?
- Can a course have inter-courses activities? e.g. this assignment could be done with students from another similar course
- Does the chat need to be a page? Couldn't it be a widget?
- Putting a chat widget is a great idea...
- Do you need to have our own tools? Couldn't we use some third-party, open source ones?
- How can we better manage multimedia content?
- How to better display photos, drawings, videos?
Mockups with recommendations, improvements and layout.
http://p2pu.org/webcraft/node/5749/document/11421