vELOCITY: Student ENGAGEMENT (2016-2017)
Student playing 'Snack Attack', a High Frequency Word game.
What is Velocity?
Velocity® is a revolutionary K-5 English Language Arts solution that extends the teacher’s reach and guides students along individualized learning paths.
Key Goal?
During this exploration, the project had 3 primary goals:
Refine the student flow and add polish.
Mask and hide deficiencies in the program (long wait times etc.)
Make the student experience more entertaining and age appropriate.
My Role.
I was the senior user experience designer and the visual creative lead. I art directed 2 other UX designers, and 3 visual designers. I collaborated primarily with the product owner, illustrator, lead engineer and head of field support.
Time Line.
From start to finish, 5 months.
The PROCESS
The goal of the initial MVP was to get students working on new skills, and doing coursework. After we created the first 20-30 activities, we had the opportunity to improve the experience as a whole and to make it more cohesive and engaging for students.
FieLD RESEARCH
Visited 4 schools and interviewed 13 classrooms representing multiple grade levels.
Classroom visits involved introduction, group discussion, written surveys and small group discussions.
Interviewed outside sales team for field feedback about experience.
DEFINE OPPORTUNITIES
We already knew the experience as a whole was sloppy. It was constructed quickly and with a tight team. We needed a solution that would satisfy our key stakeholders.
Lots of waiting for next problem to load.
Not enough opportunities to make kids laugh.
Not clear WHY a student is doing what they are doing.
The program is rough and needs a LOT of polish.
IDEATION AND BUY IN
Sourcing ideas: I facilitated multiple working team brainstorms and led design workshops. This helped the team contribute to the direction and helped flood the design team with new ideas that the developers felt confident they could deliver.
Getting everyone onboard: My favorite tool in the office is a whiteboard on wheels. I rolled my board around to show key stakeholders the ideas as they progressed to get buy in on the strategy and ecology of the proposed changes.
Sprint Deliverables: After the three key stakeholders were satisfied, I worked with the designers to create keyframes of an experience and write up the process rules for conditional parts of the experience.
WHAT WENT TO MARKET
INTRO AND OUTRO
Add introductions to each activity that explains a skill, and establishes if it is new, a reattempt, or a review. The outro reinforces the importance of a skill and uses audio and visuals to reinforce performance.
MOMENTS OF DELIGHT
When the engine is busy loading coursework, let the guides entertain the students with jokes, puns, or funny animations.
PROBLEM PICKER
Allow students to pick their next problem when the engine has multiple pathways available. This just gives the child an opportunity to have agency in their learning experience.
TRANSITIONS
Make transitions between screens smooth and delightful.
COSTUMES
Allow students to earn world specific costumes for their guide. Costumes are student rewards based on performance, time spent learning, and persistence.
Pulling it all together.
This video is a screen-capture of the experience after the first relaunch. Not everything was perfect on the first go(but what ever is?!) and we created dozens of stories and entered many bugs for the following sprints to refine the experience.
The video illustrates:
World and Character selections.
Dashboard Introduction.
Visual Transitions.
Waiting animation and audio.
Introduction to new skills.