Overview
PART ONE
How Might We:
Appeal to learners without looking like a sales platform? Stay on top of trends in remote learning platforms and product offerings Be the go-to link for creative courses, all mediums and skill levels Engage through marketing analytics and digital media campaigns Offer the first course free Market through social media demos and influencers Offer collaborative or team-based subscriptions Host design and creativity conferences Offer fresh course offerings Build curriculum as community Offer loyalty discounts, badges and incentives Pursue ad-hoc demos and workshops, art and design competitions, host teaser workshops Create opportunities for pulling together creative individuals, teams and organizations and growing learner advocacy. High Priority User Stories
User flows
NEW USER
Launch → Onboarding Options → Search Courses → Peruse Search Results → View Course Details → Buy course → Complete Purchase → Start Course ONBOARDED or REGISTERED USER
Launch → Sign in → View Profile / Courses → Start or Resume Course?-OR- Search / browse courses → Peruse Search Results → View Course Details → Buy course →Complete Purchase → Start Course Registered user
New user
©2021 Carol Barger All rights reserved Hi Fidelity Prototype
Flow 1 Primary flow
Launch → Search and view courses?→ Select a course, view course?→ Add to card?→ Add credit card and purchase?→ Start Course & and view all it’s content and discussions?→ Complete Course
- - -
Flow 2 Registered User / Sign in, Resume Course OR Search, View and Add a Course
Launch → Google sign on → View Dashboard → Resume Course (e.g., trous jours a Arles) → Course Playlist → Complete Course → Rate Course
Flow 3
Select another course, buy, start and complete
Launch → View Course content → Buy Course → View Course content → Complete Course Content
Flow 4
Prototype - Resume Course → Launch → View Course content, Resume Course → Join Discussion?→ Complete Course
ALTERNATIVE FLOW (not prototyped) → View my Courses or View Settings → Edit and Save Settings
Design Notes
We demonstrated both the mockups and code-less prototype to two potential/target customers.
What worked well.
As a design community, we're taking on the challenge of learning and applying new remote, virtual e-learning trends, research methods, practice and principles and getting acquainted with all the ins and outs of e-learning platforms, specific to creative arts subject matter and also with flexibility for varied learning styles. The easy part: Since creativity is our bag of goods, we can easily spot quality of design and art instruction and detect the strength?and weaknesses of competitors. What didn’t work well.
As with everything new, it’s challenges that move our designs and engineering forward. What we thought would be a simple solution may well increase in complexity as e-learning trends grow and evolve. We're confident we can solve and resolve, by offering our learners greater density and breadth of course offerings, quality instruction, easy virtual/anywhere access, and inexpensive to purchase. Plus extras, such as creative community, social, sharing, and by hosting national and local art and design competitions. What we discovered.
The road ahead: eLearning has been a huge market opportunity during, and will continue beyond the pandemic. The greater challenge is moving away from legacy systems and even the current standard platforms, adapting newer trends, instructional design practicum and e-learning experience design, and growing our knowledge base for e-learning technologies, and e-learning. Roles Matrix
Collaborative and cross functional efforts
PART FOUR
Minimum Viable Product
Overview Introduction & Goal
A multi-viewpoint application that presents learners with creative skills courses and resources. Virtual, live or recorded video instruction Instructor-generated content, predominantly video tutorials and live webcasts Enables users to grow a creative network, seek support, mentorship and build relationships with their peers. WHO: The Customer
Artists and designers of all levels, 18 years or older, location and demographic-diverse?Creative learners seeking relevant, relatable, retainable instructional content that reflects the learner’s greatest potential.?Creatives seeking quick turnaround/full immersion training to freshen or broaden their creative skills sets ?Creatives seeking to update their tools, and expand knowledge, creative and technical skills, and / or seeking a beginning or mid-career change?
WHAT: The Problem to be Solved
100% remote, asynchronous, accessible learning for artists, designers, and career changers?Assistive technologies, vision braille, voice recognition, live captioning, alt text?for images, searchable keywords, screen recording, voice-over descriptions
Solution
Multiple viewpoint/downloadable mobile application Initially free to all users Learners can conduct quick and easy search for creative video courses. Live, virtual or recording video instruction. Free trial/optional subscription-based offering Wide variety of classes to choose from Optional profile, notifications and creative network, ratings, share and community? Features
What does the product look like?
TWO BASIC FLOWS FOR FIRST ROUND ITERATION
NEW USER
Launch → Onboarding Options → Search Courses → Peruse Search Results → View Course Details → Buy course → Complete Purchase → Start Course
ONBOARDED USER
Launch → Onboard → View Profile / Courses → Start or Resume Course?Image: Components for basic flow designed using Figma open source templates wireframe kit.
©2021 Carol Barger All rights reserved.
Hi Fidelity Prototype
PART FIVE
Evaluation
Alternatives: Skillshare, Coursera
How we’ll be different: The creative projects features in most other offerings are compelling and fun, but our goal would be to serve a wider creative audience, wider range of courses, 1-3 day live workshops uploaded from anywhere in in the world and offer live virtual instruction, class ratings, art & design competition hosting and socialization.
How could it succeed?
Long term customer retention Subscriptions and media campaigns New courses, fresh content What could lead to a user no longer using your product
Member- generated course content Subscription-based, conversion, return customers. Risks / How could it fail?
Collateral and course quality, volume, diversity of selection vs. learner expectation Failure of instructor content to generate self supporting revenues Stale content, incomplete courses, drop offs, back outs and poor customer testimonials and reviews. Members are learners and instructors Learners without all the latest technology on hand may struggle to ramp up and quit before they actually have the opportunity to benefit from e-learning coursework eLearners, especially social and verbal learners do not progress well without connection with other learners, mentors and assistive teams Course completion rates provide essential red flags that the course may be too rigorous but do not highlight specific measured touch points or roadblocks. Daily individual stand-ups were implemented for a short time but these became overly time consuming. Overall progress scores - a module by module completion rate might be more effective. Grading team assessments of effort, productivity and creativity, which is a subjective measurement, resulting in varied opinions and inconsistencies across the grading team. OKRs and KPIs
Synchronous and asynchronous learning Free introductory workshops and short term trial subscriptions Full immersion courses completed within 6 months Flexible coursework for those challenged with time management Skill-based instruction with specific outcome expectations. Focused on “How-to” and real world application Mentoring, discussion forums and support Easily accessible, affordable, 100% remote, self-paced, relevant, relatable and retainable e-learning platform that features workshops for artists, designers, and community with other creatives. We are going to design for time constraints so that we help students realize their potential.Help creative growth educators solve the challenges of developing effective e-learning programs by designing for, and advocating for new-age e-learners.? Success metrics, baseline, target, time frame
KPIs: % of users engaged through workshops % of new subscribers from free 30-day trial % of new subscribers from first “course free”? Skills surveys and assessment during workshops? Click through rate or cost per click Target: 5,000 new course registrants post release Time frame: 6 months / Another 10,000 in 12 mo Mitigation through key metrics and analytics
Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%?Total volume of new subscribers relative to completion rates?% of learners who submit favorable reviews?Avg. # of new users referred per active user?Quantitative & site usage analytics / Average # of new & onboarded users. . . Querying courses & beginning social engagement Creating a profile (either paid or free—like a newsletter) Direct vs. redirect registering on the e-learning site Downloading resources / free course materials, etc. Return customers and/or upgrades? Overall time per module, sticking points and related support requests? Issue severity level PART SIX
Product Roadmap
Initial build sequence plan
2021:
Q1: Learner analytics, research
Q2: Develop and instructional video platform
Q3: Onboarding, member/learner profile and settings.
Q4: Search courses, results and detail views,
2022:
Q1: Favorites, saved courses functionality, course instructor ratings
Q2: Learner community / forum
Q3: Ratings, share, art competition hosting, marketing research and analytics
Q4: Notifications
First release
2023:
Q1: First Release
Q2: Iterative Release
Q3: Iterative Release
Q4: Second Release
Initial builds
Nine categories, and high volume of courses Instructor/Author generated and uploaded Browse courses / recommendations Register and pay for courses Profile, dashboard and course library Video-based learning platform
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