Bringing people together
The Studio serves as the editing component within our learning management system, essential for teachers to craft and share educational content for learners. It stands as the cornerstone of the edX system and the open-source community, facilitating crucial functions in online education.
Feedback from users revealed that the Studio's interface was becoming outdated, and their frustrations were hindering the platform's growth and impacting teachers' effectiveness.
Many problems to solve…
As we embarked on enhancing the experience, it was crucial to acknowledge the presence of multiple teams globally working on the same open-source experience. Each team also catered to specific needs of their learners, adding complexity to the situation.
Our primary focus shifted towards addressing the overarching problem that brought these teams together, facilitating a collaborative effort to identify all the challenges requiring solutions. This involved aligning on the tasks at hand and delineating responsibilities among the teams involved.
Collecting data and pain points
Platform map ratings, a series of user interviews where course authors evaluated Studio's features, were instrumental in identifying both strengths and weaknesses. We collected feedback which highlighted the need for more intuitive navigation and efficient management of high volumes of courses, particularly for collaborators like MIT, who manage over 800 courses.
I laid out a design sprint with the team to establish a structured framework, ensuring that all team members could actively contribute and have an equal say in the process. We began by gathering existing research from user interviews and surveys, synthesizing the findings into key themes representing common challenges.
Next, we collaborated with the team to distill these themes into identifiable problems. We selected three priority pages for immediate attention, while planning code base upgrades for the remaining sections of the Studio.
Working closely with the product team, we formulated problem statements and "how might we" statements to guide our design efforts. These statements provided a clear direction for designers during the ideation phase.
Ideation session for collaboration
The ideation session was the platform for the team to sketch out their thoughts so that we would collectively work together to unbiasedly redesign Studio
During the ideation session, team members sketched out their ideas, fostering a collaborative environment to redesign Studio without bias. Following this, we conducted a dot voting exercise to prioritize the most promising designs.
Subsequently, we deliberated on assigning tasks to team members based on their expertise and availability to execute the designs.