Assignment 1: User Needs and Design

Tufts University, my home institution, moved from its own learning management system to Canvas this year. This gave me a few insights into meeting experience “fit” as I attempted to use Canvas at my own school.

· Understanding how to use the service is critical. No matter how slick and simple the design of the service, if its users cannot take advantage of its services it is useless. At Tufts, several courses had difficulty making the syllabus accessible or providing the option to submit assignments. This added unnecessary steps of emailing the TA or contacting the professor — all because the system was not intuitive.

· Adding value means making life easier. When asking my classmates what they liked about Canvas, they overwhelmingly responded that it saves time — whether tracking assignments through the Calendar function, which was not present in the previous software, through accurate email notifications, or through the streamlined design.

· Figuring out what consumers want isn’t always simple. At times, as we identified in the “Lean Startup” text, what might be desired from a service may change from the initial demands. While collaborating with other universities or working on projects jointly with other students may seem appealing, in practice some of these functions may never be used. These services should mimic how people would actually use the service in order to get as much out of it as possible.

· What works for some might not work for others. For instance, the demands and rewards of a student may be different than those of a professor. When looking at particular instances like grades, pains and gains seem to be relative. The result is that the value proposition simply can’t work for everybody equally, but should strive to reach out to as many as possible.

Below, I have attached screenshots of my formula for “Customer Profile” and “Value Map” for Canvas.