Project Overview

January 2023 - May 2023

Team

• Brookley Rigsbee

• Zach Nahorski

• Maira Mansoor

• Shree Sathiyan

• Gianna Maihofer

• Kara Pearson

• Max Kowalski

• Ella VanderMolen

My Role

• ideation

• sketching

• wireframes

• prototyping

• interviews

• user testing

• final presentation

Problem Space

Cisco U is a personalized online learning platform intended to prepare people to have the knowledge they need to acquire new certifications. Our focus on this project was to take the desktop learning platform and adapt it for a mobile platform while also adding new features that specifically cater to the mobile learning experience.

User Group

We focused on one of Cisco’s user personas: a young adult who is new to their professional career and is looking to gain new skills or improve their current skills.

We chose this persona because it was most similar to our interviewees, and it integrates well into the idea of Cisco U mobile. Since these people are employed and commuting to work, they have a bit of downtime during their commute that could easily be used for mobile learning.

My Personal Goal

• improve professional communication skills

• improve UI design skills

• learn more about how the UX Design process works in industry

  
  

Final Design Overview

Goal: to design a mobile supplement to Cisco U's desktop version that allows users to conveniently and effectively study on the go.

Goal Setting

Viewing Goals in Calendar

Study Concepts

Home Page and Course Home

Q/A

Process

My team and I broke our process into three sprints based around Cisco's three pillars: Guidance, Depth, and Community.

Guidance

Goal: To develop a more personalized experience for users that is tailored to their needs as a learner.

Methods Used: Secondary Research, Interviews, Ideation, Wireframing, User Testing

• Interview Takeaways:

  • Many current Cisco U users create study plans for motivation, to help organize their work, and hold them accountable.

  • Many interviewees indicated that they liked having a study buddy to hold them accountable.

• Goal of my prototype: to create a study plan questionnaire to help users create a customized learning plan that fits within their schedule and helps them balance their time between working and studying.

  • The app generates a plan based on the user's answers and the study plan would then be integrated with a calendar on the app. 

  • Users indicate whether or not they wanted to be paired with a mentor

  
  

  

  
  

  

  Takeaways from Concept Testing

• Focus on the three questions that are the most important to consider when creating goals, as well as make the phrasing clearer:

  • When do you want to complete your certification?

  • What days do you want to study? (Changed from: When do you want to study?)

  • What time do you want to study? (Changed from: How long do you want to study?)

    
    

  What I learned from this activity

• I was able to improve my wireframing and prototypying skills

• I learned not to get too hung up on details during early stages of the design process

• I learned to adapt my ideas to make them easier to understand

Depth

Goal: To support users by enriching their learning through clearer access to supplemental materials.

Methods Used: Interviews, Ideation, Wireframing, User Testing

• Research Takeaways:

  • Cisco U already has many resources that are available to users

  • Some resources users found helpful while completing courses outside of Cisco U consisted of podcasts, webinars, and videos

    
    

• Goal of prototype: provide useful supplemental materials to users that support their learning

  • Each course includes its own study materials and supplemental content in organized tabs

Takeaways from Concept Testing

• Users want supplemental content to help enrich their learning

• Including supplemental content on the mobile app reduces the need for users to find or create their own content

  
  

Community

Goal: To provide opportunities for users to aid each other in their learning.

Methods Used: Competitive Analysis, Interviews, Ideation

• Research Takeaways:

  • Cisco U integrated its more-social platform, Cisco Learning Network, where users can ask and answer each others' questions

  • Asking questions fits into the flow of our users’ study habits

  • Forum is convenient if users have questions while working through course content 

  • Forum provides an opportunity for peers or professionals to answer questions and provide feedback

    
    

• New features for mobile app:

  • being able to highlight or select parts of a video or reading to facilitate note taking

• a forum styled Q/A for users to interact with each other and support each others' learning

  
  

• Goal of prototype: facilitate taking notes and communicating with other users to enrich learning and encourage communication

  

  
  

  Takeaways from Concept Testing

• users found this feature to be useful

• users often look to forums for answers if they have questions

• users find it nice to have this resource on the app, rather than having to search around for answers on other sites

  
  

What I Learned from this Project

• improved professional communication skills through conducting interviews and participating in sponsor meetings

• learn more about what it's like to design in industry

  • lots of people can be involved in a project, which can make progress very slow

• how to adapt language and visual ideas to be more clear to users