Case study: An app helps you love learning online - Love OnLive learning
The project of designing an e-learning app
Recently, in this one-week individual project, we are planning to launch a new mobile app for a self-paced learning program for the user who can learn online. Since this market is competitive, we need to find a unique point for this product to stand up in the market. This app will launch on both Android and iOS.
First of all, I want to understand how people feel about e-learning and why people have willing to pay for it. Because this part will be necessary for the product can stand up in the market. For the research, I focused on people who have been using e-learning programs for more than one year or have a passion for learning.
1. Understand the user's needs
A. Interview
I collected seven interviews data. Their ages are between twenty-five to fifty years old, and their average age is 38 years old. After one round of affinity mapping, I got some results from interviews of this part of the research: They like the program to provide certification for users to show their new skills in the curriculum. They want to have a free trial or free lesson to know the class quality before they pay. They like no distance and location limit to learn online. They also want to recheck recordings for the online class when they need to review some part of the study.
They don’t like that they are unsure about the class quality, but they need to pay a year's contract. 43% of interviewees mention that they feel unhappy and unable to buy a single class or package. At the same time, 86% of interviewees said online recording courses have no reaction or feedback from classmates and teachers. They prefer live classes or can do live lectures online.
B. Personas
Combined with all the information I have, the primary personas is Alicia in this case. She is an international buyer at Mango. She is 38 years old and lives in Barcelona alone. She is an iOS user, and her personality is energetic and hard-working. She wants to learn digital marketing to get a higher position in her company. Her goal is to develop this significance. She studies basic knowledge from university and then shows her boss some evidence of her new skill. And she hopes this study program can fit into her busy life because she prefers live class, but Alicia is only able to do it on the weekend, and she can’t dedicate a lot of time to learning but lost her life balance.
About her pain points, here is what she said:
“ I’m not interested in other classes of year contract. I only want to learn the thing I’m interested in.”
“ I don’t want to pay the money if I’m not sure the quality of the class.”
“ I like a live class. You can have reacted with your classmates, and the teacher can give you feedback and correct your mistake.”
C. Benchmarketing
Going back to the benchmarking research, I compared another five popular e-learning apps. I found most of the apps have the functions “they want”. However, there is one point I want to highlight, which is “Online Live Class” this part is still no app running it. I found most of the online live classes focus on exercise, language, and some remote tech classes. However, still not many apps for a comprehensive course running. There is opportunity in this market, especially worldwide, during the pandemic timing.
2. How can we help?
That is the reason launched the app “Love OnLive Learning”. This app focuses on providing online live classes to users. It has recording classes simultaneously for the people who prefer live courses but cannot attend at this moment. Moreover, the function including all the above mentions “they like”, such as recording video for the student to review their study if they need. And the Rating and student feedback part can help new users evaluate the class they want to learn.
Availability of this app has a chat function in both live and recording courses to help students get feedback, request questions, and interact with other people in the class. Furthermore, with the app’s flexibility, the user can choose either live or recording lessons to fit better into their schedule and interests. Moreover, they can pay for a single class or package they are interested in learning.
* How do we make money? - From business views
How does the company make money from this service? Since this app is just a start-up, the primary revenue plan will come from two-part parts. The first part is through the subscription to online courses and recording classes. For the OnLive course, consider the cost is very different in the different styles of type. This part will go to a one-time payment by class or package. Users can either pay to buy one single class/ package for recording style or have an annual contract and pay monthly or yearly. There is another revenue it will come from advertisement, on the home page, there will have ample space provided to the people who want to pay to promote their course. There will be other pages and marketing ways to cooperate with course suppliers in the future. It will depend on the subscriber’s total number.
* Prototype
The scenario is the personas Alicia would like to learn digital marketing, and she has no time for live classes on the weekday now. However, she will want to join an online live course when she is available in the future. She wants to check a free trial about the teacher’s reputation and if she likes this teacher’s teaching style. And subscribe to recording classes for weekday study.
In the low-fidelity, the user flow shows with the green line. You can react to the same user flow in high fidelity. You can also see some page designs re-organized from low-fi to high-fidelity due to correction after usability testing. The part will explain it in the next two paragraphic.
* The difference between Android and iOS design
When I design the difference between Android and iOS, there is no significant gap between these two forms if there are cognitive differences between users of the same brand. Therefore, the only significant difference you can see is the menu bar in Android is on the top of the screen, which is how Android users use way. On the other hand, the iOS s on the Botton of the screen.
3. The design decision after usability testing
* Home page
The feedback I got from the usability testing is that the app focuses on an online live class. So I should give it the main space. That was why I changed the top main area only to show the Onlive course. Let the users quickly see which classes are live now and which ones will come soon. For users to grape the information faster. Such as prices, ratings, and the duration you can find on the first screen. Also, you can check the live class schedule in the live calendar.
* Package page
The same reaction I took for the package page, due to the confused testers confused about the package screen, is the offer for a single or package class. I redesign the information in the single course of the package. You can see the number of each type and the timeline of this package to know how they can get the certification during this course.
* Sign-in & Payment page
My old plan was that users did not need to sign in to attend all the free classes until they purchased in the lo-fidelity. After testing, considering better benefit results for this business survived, I changed it so the users need to sign in to an account first and then join the free class on this platform. And the shift in payment to the easy pay function for the trend.
Next steps
Overall this project, I learn a lot from this process. There are three main things:
* Organized the design in a better way
Some of the content is too crowded on the screen on the page, and then some part of the color is not strong enough. Due to the time pressure, I leave it in a designed way that is softer. However, I would like to try it in another more neat style. I’m interested in how it will work in the same form.
* Learn how to work efficiently: Don’t overthink.
The same thing always has two sides, it let me have other thoughts. Sometimes the perfect is the energy of progress. Winston Churchill once said that “perfection is the enemy of progress.” However, perfect is also the enemy of done. So it depends on how we balance perfection and the done. In my case, learning how to work more efficiently, I think will be the work to improve this process.
* Focused on users’ pain points
It is important to remind myself don’t lose focus during my research process. Because sometimes, after I check many good products, my idea is stuck in the same circle of their shadow. It is complex to have created in this way. Focus on users’ pain points helped me concentrate on resolving the problem.
There are always many things that can improve, especially under time pressure, we can learn to pick up essential points for the project to be completed in better condition.
Thanks for taking the time to read my article. If you have some ideas or advice, welcome for discussion, please drop me a message. : )
