Lynnette algebra tutor
I redesigned Lynnette, an online algebra UI, to communicate to students how their progress was assessed in the back end.
Overview
The problem
The problem was that students didn’t find the existing tutoring UI engaging, since they didn’t understand how their progress was being assessed.
Biggest research insight
Students had difficulty understanding how the system was assessing them.
My role
UX designer
User interviews
Academic research
Interaction design
Prototyping
The users
Middle school students
Middle school teachers
Timeframe
3 months - UX work
Contributors
Vincent Aleven - SME
Jonathan Sewall - SME
Sharon Dayoung Lee - UX
Katie Chen - UX
Final concept
Skill increase
When a student correctly completed a step, the UI reflected the increase in their skills and highlighted which skills were involved.
Skill decrease
When a student incorrectly completed a step, the UI reflected the decrease in their skills and showed that subsequent incorrect answers wouldn’t additionally decrease their skills.
Skill mastery
When a student mastered a skill, the UI would reward them with a juicier micro-interaction.
Level mastery (all skills mastered)
When a student mastered every skill, thus completing the level, the UI micro-interaction is even juicier.
The process
Getting up to speed
Joining an ongoing project, my first priority was to be a sponge, interviewing teachers who used the software and watching recorded student focus groups.
Applying academic research
In lieu of direct user testing, I wanted to apply as much academic research as possible to the mockups I was designing.
Students' Understanding of their Student Model - Yanjin Long and Vincent Aleven
Prototype explicitly demonstrating how the system was assessing skill
Handling design solution feedback
I would occasionally receive design solutions as feedback from stakeholders and became practiced at asking “why” to understand the reasoning.
After understanding the reasoning, if I proposed a different solution, I’d still quickly mock up their solution to provide a visual comparison.
Design solution given as feedback
My proposal
My reflection
What was I right about?
When explaining design decisions to stakeholders, it helped to speak their language, in this case, academic research terminology.
What was I wrong about?
Because we were working in a waterfall structure, I initially thought my work was “done” when I handed off mockups.
What would I do differently?
I would push for a success metric that I could test and measure with design prototypes.