Using Design Thinking to build a feature from A to Z
During a Lepaya training, learners go through 3 steps: they learn the theory in our app through bite-size content, they practice a personal case in classroom with an actor, and they apply their skills on the job.
This apply phase is crucial: without learning transfer, we cannot have an impact! When setting up a training, you want people to change their behavior and put what they’ve learned into practice.
Therefore we decided to deep dive into this step of the learner journey to see how we could become even more impactful, using the Design Thinking methodology.
I’m Amélie and I am working in the Product team as a UX Researcher. Let’s have a look together at how we use the Design Thinking methodology to build a feature at Lepaya! 🚀
🤯 Define the problem
After empathizing with dozens of learners through interviews and surveys, we identified a pain point in their journey that was also validated by desk research.
Studies show that only about 15–20% of participants apply what they learned on a job on the long term. — Source: Wilson Learning
After the classroom, learners go back to their busy life, full of emails and meetings, and other priorities quickly take over before the new skills can be applied. But we wouldn’t be Lepaya if we didn’t think about how we can support our learners beyond the classroom session.
We conducted more interviews and surveys to deep-dive into the specific reasons why they don’t do it and we found our problem to solve:
Learners struggle to identify an opportunity to apply their newly learned skills, and forget to do it when they are in a situation to do so.
🎨 Ideate a solution
To solve this problem, we gathered 8 people from different departments in a room (developers, learning strategists, UX designers, data analysts, product owners…) for a one-week Design Sprint.
It was a lot of fun and we collectively created a clickable prototype to solve our problem in just 5 days!
The idea is simple: At the end of the classroom, with the support of the trainer, learners identify one opportunity in the future to apply their skills and fill it in the app, including a date. We then support them by sending them reminders of this moment and specific content to prepare for it!
🤓 Prototype and test our idea
To ensure we were going in the right direction, we put the prototype in the hands of 10 learners and ran some concept testing. We received a lot of positive feedback (and a long list of things to improve!).
“I like it. It’s short, it’s to the point, and it helps me with my goal. If I try to think about how to apply my skills myself, my mind would probably be on thousands of other places, but now it’s a set time in my calendar. My brain is programmed to focus on this and I get some idea of how to do it.” — A learner who tested our prototype
👩🔬 Validate the concept in real-life
Before moving forward with the development of this idea, we tested it in real-life. We manually set up a proof-of-concept in our training that did not require any technical development effort and set up a target for success. Our goal was that a minimum of 60% of learners apply their skills on the job at least once after a Lepaya training.
We tested our concept in 11 classrooms, before comparing the data with 12 control group classrooms. And we reached our goal!
68% of learners from the testing groups declared that they indeed applied their skills on the job, compared to 20% from the control groups.
🚀 Roll-out
Following the good results, we decided to roll out this feature.
We designed a mid-fidelity prototype and ran some usability tests on 10 users. We improved the prototype based on their feedback and some regular alignments with other departments.
Check out below the video of our final prototype!
In collaboration with the developers and product owners, we then created user stories and split the features into different releases, to make sure we can deliver value to learners soon and at a regular pace!
➡️ What’s next?
Our developers are busy building this new exciting feature and it will be available to our learners by the end of the year.
You will be able to find this feature in 40% of our modules, where picking a time in your calendar to apply your skills makes sense (for example Feedback, Coaching or Presenting Yourself).
But this is not the end of the story for the apply phase! We still have a lot of training where applying your skills means something different, for example building a new habit or following an action plan. Therefore, we are working on more ideas and concepts to improve the learning transfer of our users, for example by involving learner’s managers and developing social learning!
For sure, this Product Research baby is the first of a long list to come. 🙂
