Kirby Ferguson believes that the process of copying, transforming, and combining is the essence of creativity. It’s difficult to find a cause to disagree with this remark.

As a result, copying is completely natural. You must, however, steal like an artist to be successful at copying. “It’s plagiarism if you steal from one author; it’s research if you steal from many.” Kirby’s phrase “copy, transform, combine” is probably a better way to put it.

After watching this video, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things. I was always against taking references, and I would often limit my search for inspiration because I was afraid of copying the same thing.

But now I realize that’s the only way creative ideas come to me. However, the transform and combine part of the creative process is where growth or evolution must occur.

Because our brains retain far more information than we can handle. We may catch a glimpse of an idea anywhere and store it in our mind without realizing it. After a period, the same concept arises as if it were a fresh one from the subconscious.

In the transformation process, there are tipping points where new ideas emerge. While attempting to transform into varions.

Thomas Edison did not design the light bulb — his first patent was “Improvement in Electric Lamps” — but he did perform testing with 6,000 filament materials until he created the first commercially viable bulb, according to Kerby’s Everything is a Remix video. Apple didn’t invent the desktop computer — it was a rip-off of Xerox (oh, the irony…) — but it was the first to connect the computer with a domestic appliance, kicking off the personal computing revolution.

Despite the fact that this is a universal reality, ignorance has swept it away. In his video, Kirby describes how a new principle evolved beyond recognition over time, with influential thinkers proposing that ideas are a form of property, and this conviction eventually yielded a new term “Intellectual property rights.” This was a concept that would spread widely, which is known in human psychology as “Loss Aversion,” so the gains we make using this copy version are not given as much credit. Steve Jobs was occasionally boastful about Apple’s history of copying. On the other hand, held deep grudges against those who copied Apple.

I’m going to destroy android, because it is a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermo nuclear war on this. — Steve jobs

When we copy we justify, when others copy we vilify, by Kirby Ferguson

At the very least, I found that once we accept that copying is natural and simply encourage the approach of optimizing and upgrading the copies, we will have a greater chance of seeing more innovative, new, and crazy products emerge from around the world that are being overlooked in the attempt to come up with something original.

Thank you for sticking with me all the way to the end.

This blog, too, is clearly a remix. So, on this journey of self-discovery, the remix concept has become an obsession, leading me to launch a side project in my spare time that is tied to the concept of inspiration. I blended a few concepts and solutions that had been brewing in my head for a while and turned them into a platform.

And now I felt compelled to make the side-project public so that others may profit from it, as well as to fuel my desire to scale it :-

www.theresponsiveweb.com

Copying is inevitable, but make an effort to transform and blend. Simultaneously, try to be open about it and credit the inspiration, which is equivalent to honoring and remaining loyal to your main source of inspiration.

My design playground:

omprakash.design

Everything in the creative process is a remix 🔄 was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The goal of this project is build a platform with enhanced online learning experience.

Introduction

This is an assignment during my internship

Personally, I’ve always been inspired of design teams working for various Online Learning Platform Firms. Also I myself am a regular user of online learning platforms. Fourth of my skills have been learned from online courses. But not everyone, as I have, have benefited from it. That’s because there’s a gap in the experience that people have when they learn online compared to physical class learning.

Understanding the Problem :

1. It is difficult for first time users to trust the platform to pay for a course.

2. Existing users don’t generally search on the same site for their next course.

I’ve interviewed 10–15 people, ranging from people who have no experience in using the paid learning platforms to frequent users.

1. Users are often laid back or ineffective in completing their courses.
2. Often video lectures don’t meet the standard demonstrated in the demo.
3. Majority users find it pointless if they can’t measure their progress.
4. The majority of users are not recommended as to what course to take next.
5. Users also struggle by using third party apps to take screenshots / note down what they’re studying for future reference.
6. Users feel that they mightn’t seem connected to other users / mentors.

The above were the key issues I could identify from pre-user research. Users also often get in situations when two courses with the same reviews and equally effective demo confuse the user. After the student completes the course. Users would like to have the right path to follow or the next course of the same field. For future references, users usually keep a journal and write relevant sections and images which is the least comfortable way. These lead to Increasing number of users moving to other sites. Also there has been a declining number of subscribers by failing to gain first impression of trust.

Research

Methods : Userinterviews, Market reviews, Competetive analysis

I prepared a set of user interview questions and implemented them amongst different user groups. The goal was to evaluate the user‘s basic ‘pain-points’ and optimistic points. Thinking about future users’s issues is a perfect way of being inspired and motivated. Working with real world data is a strong starting point for helping to reduce preconceptions and guesswork.

User Interviews — Questions to ask

1. What is your favourite part or motivation to use online learning platforms?
2. What devices do you typically use when visiting [project website or application]?
3. Tell me about the last time you tried to cancel or enrol?
4. What is the biggest challenge when finding a course?
5. In which field do you think online learning platforms can improve a lot?+25 Added questions

Market Reviews

I’ve collected various genuine reviews from Trust Point of top 5 online learning platforms. To get into the minds of the user and consider their problems when using the app, and what they enjoy.

Competitive Analysis

Of the same top few platforms for learning online. I conducted a competitive study that allowed me to understand their business model. For example pricing, free trails, accessibility of content etc.

Synthesise : Evaluate & Analyse -

Touch Points & Pain-points observed.

Unlike classroom classes, they are always available to watch. Users like to interact with people from around the corner for collaboration and perform guided activities. Users get confused by the platform with too many options. Online learning platform courses affect not only users with consumed knowledge, but also the possibility of building network collaboration and project development to create user confidence. Users want to receive updates about deals and reminders. Users want a functionality that can replace notes physically. Also if users realize that the course is not reflected by the demonstration, they cancel a course.

Challenges to Success

• Create the home that takes into account users based on both search usability and the category.
• Create a built-in, personalized reminder to enable users to complete their courses.
• Enable users to collaborate and network on the platform.
• Help users on picking the best course from many positively reviewed courses.
• Help users make digital notes of whole course for future reference.

The findings of my survey showed that a variety of people had specific needs. The compilation of various observations and specific trends extracted from feedback from the users allowed me to construct three personas that explain such details in a common character

Solution

Wireframes & Prototype

Here I showed a mixture of how my wire frames formed into early prototypes with significant changes. I have designed only desktop version, as 100% of my target audience use desktop version for online learning.

Research has shown two forms of users. Half of them choose search and other half categories. To satisfy both audiences, I created the below home page.

I have come up with the solution below to solve users’ challenge of taking down notes when they are learning and a tab with resources to overcome the time being wasted in search for those resources. The user can note, take a screen snapshot, highlight and store notes and later export for reference in the future.

Users indicated that they are only using wishlist for comparing courses with the best ones before they purchase. So to make their action more comfortable, I’ve added a feature of comparing 2 or more courses right through their Wishlist or directly from the course preview page.

One of our challenges is to reduce the number of users attempting to return from enrolling a course after they have purchased it. The user never comes back to the platform as they feels cheated. The best fit solution could therefore be to give 10 percent of the videos of each course free of charge as a trail version. Which gives users a clear understanding of what they’re getting into.

Some of our key pain points noticed among users was that they used third party apps to set reminders, or most of them just skipped because of their workload and were ineffective in completing their course. That’s why I designed a built-in reminder for users. Alerts can be either by mail or by sms form.

Users mentioned that there are no connections and networking with individuals on online learning platforms. This design idea can generate an extremely good impact in which users can set up groups, add mentors and refer to each other in education and career advice.

Micro Interactions:

Note taking & Course comparison

Comparing courses in Wishlist

Conclusion:

At the end of the project, I was able to accomplish the following goals:

1. The landing page of the website is not a search-based or category-based website. It’s got the right balance of both.
2. Users can setup reminders to help them complete the courses successfully.
3. Users can set up groups and communities to network with users around the world and mentors as well.
4. Users can compare their wishlist courses with a comparison table.
5. Users can edit their transcripts by highlighting, adding pictures , videos, snapshots, etc. They can build a mini note of the whole course.

Thanks for the claps 👏🏻, if you enjoyed it. It is going to encourage me to write more of it! Feel free to give your valuable feedback.

UI/UX case study: Enhancing Online Learning Experience was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.