Elevating Coursera with Learning Plans for a transformed student experience.
Role
UX Designer
Team
Individual
Duration
Jan 2024 - Mar 2024
CONTEXT
As a leading platform for Massive Open Online Courses, Coursera offers a variety of online courses. However, the platform faces challenges with retention and course completion rates.
I proposed a hypothetical solution to reduce decision fatigue and automate day-to-day coursework, creating an experience similar to learning in a traditional classroom setting, but from the comfort of home.
PROBLEM
Online learners struggle to achieve their educational goals
The flexible nature of online learning offers convenience but can also lead to distractions and procrastination, making it challenging for learners to stay focused and achieve their desired outcomes.
CURRENT STATE
Coursera’s current Learning Plan
Set your schedule
Syncing your schedule to Google Calendar is convenient during set up, but if you want to adjust your schedule in Coursera later on, your schedule doesn't refresh in Google Calendar
Weekly tracker
Students often feel unmotivated when viewing the weekly tracker, and there is limited flexibility in adjusting the estimated completion date
FINAL SOLUTION
Having a good learning structure is key
Personalized learning goals
Customize your learning schedule, set assignment reminders to stay on track with your objectives, and eliminate any coursework you have already mastered.
Learn each day with a goal in mind
Track, manage, and execute all your goals at a glance.
RESEARCH
Low retention and course completion rates
Coursera has low retention and course completion rates, despite being one of the most popular learning platforms. This trend is not an anomaly in the online course space.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The competition lacks features tailored to short-term goal setting or individualized support
Keeping the above statistics in mind, I analyzed the three most popular learning platforms and found that they primarily emphasize course searchability and credibility, allowing learners to find quality courses that fit their interests.
KEY INSIGHT
As the course progressed, students struggled with motivation
Why did users struggle?
In the beginning, motivation was high. However, students struggled to stay motivated as they delved deeper into the course. Five user interviews revealed key insights about users’ thoughts on learning online.
😩 Procrastination
"I keep telling myself that I have plenty of time, but end up just procrastinating."
😩 Courses not engaging
“After a few weeks of taking the course, I started to get impatient and lost interest. I just wanted to know how much of the course was left.”
😩 Missing assignments
"After I kept forgetting to do assignments, I got off track and felt unmotivated."
Fatigue
Difficulty managing long courses causes the student to lose enjoyment towards learning and start procrastinating
Assignment delay
While assignments can enhance student engagement, individuals with busy schedules outside the classroom may sometimes overlook completing them before the deadline
DESIGN SOLUTIONS
Narrowing down use cases
Using the research insights and secondary research, I finalized three use cases to focus on.
⚙️ Automation
Instantly displaying progress, tracking goals, and indicating completion dates makes it easier for students to understand their learning status.
🎯 Short-term goal
Providing a personalized short-term goal to enhance engagement and achievement for online learners.
📑 Assignment reminder
Minimizing the chances of overlooking assignments and enhancing the learning structure.
TESTING + ITERATION
2 major improvements in my design
Based on feedback from 5 people, I iterated my design with two major improvements.
Modifying the information displayed
Based on feedback, students preferred seeing the number of courses rather than the names of each course
I modified the design to be easily legible, containing only the start and end dates, as well as the number of courses
Flexibly skip lessons
Based on feedback, allowing students to skip lessons with no limitations doesn't hold the student accountable for actual learning
I restricted certain lessons from being skipped and instead broke them into smaller pieces, allowing students to skip a part of the lesson instead of the whole thing
FINAL PRODUCT
A transformed learning journey
1. Create a learning plan
Hailey created a learning plan for her principles of UX/UI Design course.
Skip certain lessons
Hailey has the option to skip certain lessons. However, she is restricted from skipping necessary lessons.
2. Get started
After creating a personalized learning plan for the course, the plan appears on her learning page, and Hailey starts learning right away.
Modify your personal plan
Hailey can switch learning frequency, duration, and section exclusions at any time, and adjust the end date to maintain control over her course completion timeline.
Be rewarded for a job well done
Hailey feels rewarded after seeing the progress bar reach 100% and the blue checkboxes start accumulating. Craving consistency, she watches her streak soar.
3. Learn other courses
After learning one course for a while, Hailey wants to switch to another course to change things up.
Stay on track with your courses
Hailey gets advance reminders of upcoming deadlines and assignments to prevent falling behind on her progress.
4. Continue learning after reaching your goal
Coursera reminded Hailey not to stray too far from her personal plan to avoid burnout. While there may be days when she feels extra motivated, it's important for her to maintain a sustainable pace.
NEXT STEPS
Further explore and implement solutions that encourage students to learn without requiring them to log in...
REFLECTIONS
Learnings and takeaways
🎓 Reducing the user's learning curve
I realized that it is crucial for tools to be intuitive, with a clear and logical layout, so that they are easy to learn and use.
🛠️ Designing a feature for an established platform is challenging
Designing the feature to be impactful is a task in itself, but it is also necessary to consider how the feature fits into the existing platform and adheres to the design system already in place.
