UX-Case Study | Google Classroom
Redesigning UI/UX of a widely used LMS platform
This is a part of our college user experience assignment. We are working in groups of two to redesign different websites.
Google classroom is a LMS software application developed by google, which was released in 2014. It focuses on the education sector. It is a non- profitable platform and so is free for all users who have personal Google accounts. It provides paperless service for distributing assignments, staying organised and grading assignments for schools inside and outside the school and creating a base to communicate.
What is LMS?
The Learning Management System (LMS) platforms have been there since 1924, but due to recent conditions and increase in the use and feasibility of technology the use of LMS has rapidly increased. LMS delivers learning material online. LMS not only helps users to manage content but also in registering and managing the administration while tracking and analysing their progress and gives them their report. Some of these are for educational purposes while others focus more on employee, colleague and team based working. Few of them also have scope for business and payment methods. In the current situation there is a very less chance that you haven’t come across any of them. So we decided that we will work on a LMS software application for our User Experience assignment of redesigning a website. The LMS we have chosen to work on is Google Classroom.
Competitors
Apart from Google classroom, there are other LMS platforms like Blackboard learn Canvas, Moodle and Schoology learning. In this competition, the other common software or collaboration platform used for the same purpose are Zoom and Microsoft teams. These all systems focus on building online platforms to connect and communicate for work purposes. These platforms focus on providing cloud based sharing and storing, collaborative learning, content library, grading, video conferencing and such features. One platform is better than the other in various ways.
Vision and Mission
The vision of the brand is to provide the world with a free platform for communicating, distributing, grading and organizing the assignments through a paperless and time-saving process inside and outside the school. They have been quite successful in moving towards their vision.
SWOT Analysis
This analysis tells us about the performance of the brand/platform and its scope of improvement. The strengths in this analysis shows how it is fulfilling its current vision.
Strength
- This platform is for free
- It operate in various languages
- Compatible with any or most devices (iOS, Android, web browser…)
- Connected to cloud
- Sharing work between all users of that class
- Easy to share files of any other extension
- While using an app users can take photos and attach them to the assignment
- Apps support offline access i.e by enabling to download attachments and lectures
- Multiple classrooms
- Simplify student work evaluation
Weakness
- Difficulty in initial setting for GAPPS (Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards)
- Lack of SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) compatibility
- No tracking of the user’s lessons
Opportunities
- Usable for inverted lessons
- Container for shared practices between teachers
- Paperless
- Social use of comments and feedback
Threats
- Dependency on google word/suit
- Privacy and co. — collects browser history and location
- Need network
Positive user experience can only be achieved by understanding your users the best. You need to know your users, their persona and how they will think and feel while using your product.
Stakeholders
When it comes to LMS platforms like Google classroom, they have two stakeholders. Those stakeholders are students and teachers. Both of these stakeholders hold a wide range of diverse audience.
Age
They cater to a huge age group. Age is the basis on which the education system is divided. The common cluster of customers it caters to are Secondary education, Higher education and the E-learning students. The average age group using this platform is between 13 to 15. This platform is used by a wide range of age groups that are eligible for learning. Hence, the understandability of this platform will be differing to the users according to the age groups.
Economic status
Google classroom being free for all reduces the gap when it comes to accessibility on devices. But they need devices like phones, laptops and facilities like the internet. Hence the people with no access to the internet and communicating devices cannot use this platform. This also concludes that people with very low economic status who cannot afford devices and internet access can’t use this platform. Whereas those who can afford these facilities and are already familiar with such interfaces and platforms can use it efficiently.
Geographical location
This being a global platform, which can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world, it doesn’t have much geographic constraints. The only limitation is that the internet should be available in that part of the world.
Background
Coming to the background of a customer. It might affect the interaction in a way they use the platform. As the background of the customer will define the methodology of teaching and learning. After all different types of schools function in different manners.
Understanding the existing interface
When we look at the current education system and the methods they follow, we realise that Google classroom misses out on some of the core parts of our schooling and education system. So when we start by looking at the Google Classroom’s website we realise that it maintains the Google aesthetics very well. It has this simple layout, not much of animation. It allows you to change the colour palette based on its themes. The other thing to observe is that the website is kept quite clean but the back end is not as organised as we need it to be. Moreover it is not made with keeping group learning and collaboration in mind. It doesn’t even promote one to one mentoring. It only focuses on class comments. The big idea of this whole thing is to organise everything properly in one place. This platform helps to store all material but not manage and organise it that well. Other issues were regarding not being able to maintain a proper classroom and instead handle separate subjects leading to overcrowding of classes on the teacher’s side. These are just a few of the observations that we made.
Survey for teachers and students using Google Classroom
Now here are the points that were made after conducting two different surveys for students and teachers. The survey included people from different fields and different sectors of schooling and education. Most of them use Google Classroom and Zoom for conducting video lectures in real time and other educational purposes. Most of them have started using it within the past five months. Which means LMS platforms have been recently popularised in our education. Among them most of the users use laptops and some also use phones and computers (ipads instead of computers when it comes to students).
To proceed we had to decide what is and what is not necessary or beneficial for users. To know that, one has to try using the website on their own and then listen to other users’ opinions as well. This way you make sure if the features you think are actually needed and required or just assumed by us to be necessary. After talking to the users as well as comparing our platform with other platforms and real education methods we found some issues to be resolved. This gave us an idea about the scope of improvement.
Features to be added
Using the data we collected so far we could decide how to implement that idea as a feature in our platform. There are a lot of features we would like to add to make the experience of the users better. The ideas/features that we are planning to include in the website
- Subjects in classes
- Allowing more than one host-teacher for class and subject
- Invite guest lecturer for a subject
- Attendance based on real-time and non-real-time lectures
- Communities — for co-curricular activities hosted by student or teacher
- On stream categories- posts, doubts and announcements
- Show new posts and announcements in the stream — unseen
- Search posts, doubts or announcements from stream
- Notifications in classroom stream for
— New subject/optional subject added
— New announcements
— New assignments
— Due date changes
— Calendar
— Due dates coming near
- Material- organised collection of videos, audios, pdfs, links and google app files.
- Proper folder getting created in the back end of drive per class, per subject per topic, per student.
- Notes — making notes through the meets, docs, slides or any material given by teacher or so
- Private chats and group chats with teachers as well as students • Group works
- Search for names during checkbox selection — by pressing letters of the name
- Dashboard per student — includes per student data like attendance, assignments and gradebook
- Class summary — students can view their classmates work when teacher allows
- Previous and current submissions comparison for teachers
- Show and don’t show grades to students
- Creating report cards — set your own grading system
Information Hierarchy
After this we need to set our information hierarchy. So we know what we should focus on. We decided the following to be part of our information hierarchy.
- Classrooms (names)
- Latest-Posts
- Google Meetings
- Assignments
- To-do
- Google Drive
— Your work
— Class’ work
- Grades & Feedback
- Calendar
- People
Navigation Flow
After this, we need to set our navigation flow. Website navigation allows the flow from one page to another. It gives us an idea of how pages are organized in an application which makes the design process easier and efficient.
Style Guide
A Style Guide basically sets a standard for the writing, look and feel, formatting, design and the theme of the website. It is a one-stop place to see all visual styles of the site such as buttons, color pallets, typography, animations, drop shadows and any visual language that is used on the site. Google Classroom maintains the Google aesthetics very well. It has this simple layout with not much of an animation. We have not changed it much as the users find it easy to understand and in accordance to match the Google aesthetics, it had to be the same.
Wireframes
Wireframing is a way to design a website at a structural level. A wireframe is commonly used to layout content and functionality on a page which takes into account user needs and user journeys. Below are a few wireframes that were designed for our website.
Features
Looking at the current Google Classroom’s website, it is clearly seen that they have fulfilled their motive of providing the world with a free platform for communicating, distributing, grading and organizing the assignments through a paperless and time-saving process inside and outside the school. But looking at the current situations, it is required more as a complete Learning Management System (LMS), a place where students and teachers can experience schooling virtually. Hence, below are some features, we feel Google Classroom can incorporate in itself.
Prototypes (Mockups)
Conclusion
Google classroom is a great LMS, with a large audience base. But it has equally good competitors. It is a massively emerging platform and so it needs to keep on improving and providing good services to its users. There is a lot that can be incorporated in the platform to make it better, not by just making it convenient for the users but also by giving them the experience they never expected.
Thank you
