Focus Assist
Executive Summary
Due to the pandemic, many schools require students to study/learn from home. Students and professors have to use online platforms to communicate with one another. However, using the internet and a screen to learn can create new issues, such as the inability to focus.
Through the interviews of five participants, all who use online platforms to communicate for educational purposes, it can be concluded that many students face difficulty focusing. Many students stated that they feel “lazier” because of remote learning and “do better” when classes are in person. This allows for an opportunity to add a feature on their primary video conference application to stay interactive and focused during class.
Our key research takeaways were that students find remote learning convenient but struggle to do well in class when learning remote. With that information, we created a feature that would allow students to continue learning remote but with assistance and accountability. Our key design takeaways were that students who want/able the assistance can enable the features so that the alerts are not bothersome to those who prefer not to. Another key design feature is the alerts itself. It is right in the middle of the screen during class so students should not miss it and it is a reminder to stay focused while providing small movement suggestions to keep them awake.
Our problem statement, how might we make remote learning an interactive experience to keep students focused during remote class, is validated in our hypothesis. Our hypothesis stated that students need a way to feel present while in remote class which is what we are working on with our problem statement and design.
The Problem
With the current pandemic, many students started attending school online. While remote class might be convenient and comfort, many students started to struggle with their focus.
Problem Statement
Our hypothesis was that people in school need a way to communicate remotely and feel present while studying from home during the pandemic.
The assumptions were-
- Everyone knows how to use communication apps and how to effectively use the features on them.
- People have problems communicating remotely and would rather work in person.
- People all have the latest phone that is able to download all the necessary apps to communicate with professors/classmates.
So, how might we provide a way for students to communicate remotely and feel present while studying from home?
Our Goal
Through user interviews, we wanted to validate our hypothesis that students want to feel present (able to feel like it’s an in-person class) while studying remotely.
Methodology
We interviewed five students who are currently studying from home. All interviews were conducted through Zoom. Our goal was to find our how they were communicating with their peers/professors and how they felt about school being remote.
Tying it Together — Affinity Mapping
The image above shows key aspects/quotes compiled from the interviews broken down into common themes.
We found that students enjoy the convenience of remote learning but feel as though they aren’t able to preform as well as they did when classes were in person.
Our key insights from the interviews were-
- Students find remote learning convenient and comfortable.
- Remote learning has an effect on students’ concentration and learning.
Persona
We created a persona to better understand our target audience. The image above shows our persona, Kelly, who is a remote college student.
Kelly’s Story
Kelly works a nightshift at her school library. This job is crucial for her to pay her school tuition. However, she finds it extremely difficult to focus and stay awake for her morning classes which is affecting her grades. She wants to be able to get through class without falling asleep while her job at the library. In order to accomplish that, she needs class to seem more interactive. But she finds it extremely difficult considering she can’t consume caffeine.
Revised Problem Statement
From our interviews and our persona, we found that many students are struggling with their focus during remote class. We want to find ways to help Kelly and other take full advantage of their learning. So, how might we make remote learning an interactive experience to keep students focused during remote class?
Design
With our two key insights in mind, we created a feature that users would be able to enable if they wanted help. It would send them alerts/ reminders during class to keep them focused.
Product Reveal
Creating the Solution
During the sketching phase, we created how users could enable the features. We wanted it to be an option for those who need it, rather than it being embedded into the app for everyone.
Mid-fidelity Screens
User Testing: First Round
During our first round of user testing, we tested 5 participants to test out our low-fidelity prototype. Our goal was to test how easily users can enable the features and then test them. Their scenarios/tasks were —
-Scenario + Task 1:
You were ranting to your friends about your grades which have significantly dropped since classes went remote. They mentioned that there was an added feature on the app that might help with your concentration. Enable the recently added feature to improve your concentration for class.
-Scenario + Task 2:
You enabled the features and you feel motivated and excited to see how you can take full advantage of this opportunity to help your concentration. Test out the features in your next class.
Results — all five users directly succeeded their tasks and gave an easiness rating of 5.
User Testing: Second Round
During our second round of user testing, we tested 5 participants to test out our mid-fidelity prototype. Our goal was to test how easily users can enable the features and then test them. Their scenarios/tasks were the same as first round.
Results — users had an increase on the time spent on both tasks.
Final Prototype
Task 1:
https://www.figma.com/proto/Ngc6mANSgfaCX0HCSJpjcl/midfi-tast-1?page-id=0%3A1&node -id=51%3A0&viewport=274%2C-705%2C0.14813734591007233&scaling=scale-down
Task 2:
https://www.figma.com/proto/oVI7KbBqyOIHu4fOgrvnU1/midfi-task-2?page-id=0%3A1&node -id=1%3A400&viewport=-159%2C-398%2C0.5336031913757324&scaling=scale-down
Recommendations
With our user testing, we found that users enjoy the features but not all the features. Some users expressed that they don’t like the “unmute” feature. Our team would like to change the unmute alert to more suggestion based alerts.
