Turning Clicks Into Quests
Northwestern PATH, a learning management system for engineering students, fosters study skills, goal-setting, and mental well-being. They sought a modernized system to boost engagement and retention with their students that they could eventually license to other institutions.
Client
Northwestern University
Year
2023
Team Structure & My Responsibilities
Project Manager
UX Lead (That’d be me!)
Design Lead
Interaction Designer
-
Discovery (4 weeks)
Desk Research | Stakeholder & User Interviewers | Survey Design | Problem Definition
-
Ideation (2 Weeks)
Wireframing | Gamification Strategy | Push Notification Strategy
-
Design Partnership (6 weeks)
Design Alignment | Empathy & Advocacy | Implementation Guidance
DISCOVERY
Let’s Get Familiar
With limited discovery time, I opted to conduct a virtual one-hour focus group (rather than individual interviews) with the program’s deans and software developers to:
Quickly increase our team’s subject matter knowledge
Learn about key features and usage patterns
Socialize our problem state to drive early stakeholder buy-in
We learned
Post-pandemic student cohorts seemed to be less connected and more siloed
Many students rushed through course modules right before class
Stakeholders were curious about students’ perceptions of the program’s pacing and the module sequencing
Stakeholders wanted the content & system’s tools to inspire students to be more reflective on how they optimize their attention
What were others doing?
Our project team needed to understand industry standards to make smart strategic decisions, so I spent an afternoon taking notes on the competition.
Design Conventions
How similar products look and behave (UI, icons, content, layout)
-
Clear, personalized “My Courses” or “To-Do” sections, progress indicators, and announcements front & center.
-
Main navigation menus are section-based and persistent on the left, leaving more horizontal space for content.
-
Modules tend to be sequential & typically contain projected time to complete, discussion forums, and ratings.
Product Conventions
What similar products do (features, flows, offerings)
-
These systems allow learners to construct their own knowledge & understanding through active participation & interaction with the content, instructor, and their peers.
-
Reminders prompt users to return back and achieve their desired goals.
-
Similar products use reward-based gamification strategies (unlockables, streaks etc) or progress-based strategies (points, levels, badges) to support regular engagement and habit-building.
But what did students think?
My user research plan consisted of a survey AND user interviews to uncover needs, preferences, and pain points, and then dig deeper into the “why” for richer qualitative insights.
Unfortunately, students were unavailable during Summer break, so I focused on the next closest available audience, the program’s peer mentors. The majority of them had taken the course within the past year.
I captured 15 survey respondents and conducted 4 user interviews.
Using Miro to affinity map the qualitative data, I created a series of “I statements” to summarize & generate insights, leading to product decisions.
IDEATION
How might this look?
Armed with insights, I turned to Figma to wireframe key pages to create initial design direction and further cross-disciplinary conversations.
Push it
Why push notifications?
The organization needed to drive students back into the platform for engagement
Students needed encouragement for academic resilience
But to socialize the feature with our clients and spur conversation, I created a framework to govern potential notification types, their level of urgency, and suggested deployment cadence.
Getting Gameful
jbvkhvhkvhkvkvhkvkvkh. v hvbkbjkbjl
vjhvkjvjhvkhvhk
hvjhvjhvjhv
