As part of my role as a UX Designer at Strut Learning for their eMojo and SELDA products, I ideated and designed new pages from scratch, led user research to discover user experience issues with our Alpha and Beta prototypes, and coordinated with the CEO, CTO, and development teams to prepare development of our final product. This work included storyboarding, user journeys, design systems, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing to iteratively develop the product in an Agile workflow.
Strut Learning creates adaptive e-Learning technology to support Emotional Intelligence (EQ) development in schools. To this end, we utilized research on Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) to explore how E-Learning platforms could integrate EQ development into academic content.
Students with higher EQ better understand and manage emotions, perform well academically (based on grades and test scores), and show stronger emotional, behavioral, academic, and career potential.
Students rated high in EQ and social competence in Kindergarten are 4x more likely to earn a college degree. Additionally, these scores also predicted a difference in outcomes all the way to age 25. Given its strong link to success in education, employment, and mental health, developing EQ and SEL from an early age is essential and should accompany academic learning.
Emojo is an E-learning platform that builds students’ EQ alongside academics. Teachers can create lessons with readings, videos, and assessments, while students grow their SEL skills through journaling, reflection, and activities. Alongside Emojo, the SELDA EQ assessment tracks student progress and adapts their lessons in real time to meet individual needs.
Our platform has four main users: teachers, students, parents, and administrators. While teachers build lessons and students use them, parents and administrators can see their students’ progress and EQ development.
We handpicked our colors and fonts to feel friendly and inviting alongside our broad, vibrant color palette. Every persona was assigned their own primary and secondary color to differentiate across experiences.
Along with creating high fidelity wireframes from our pen-and-paper low fidelity wireframes, we also wrote user stories, journey mapped, and created fully-interactive prototypes on Figma for every persona.
Using our Figma prototype, I led user research and performed observational testing to observe how primary school teachers in Chicago navigated our Emojo platform. Our goal was to ensure the app was intuitive, easy to use, and valuable across diverse teaching backgrounds.
Through interviews with both public and private school teachers, we found most had experience with online learning platforms and classroom management systems and agreed they help support student learning.
During testing, teachers completed tasks on the prototype with minimal guidance, allowing us to observe their performance and assess usability and user error rates.
As a result, we found several areas where teachers felt overwhelmed by UI choices and or feature functionality. For instance, many struggled with the class comparison tool in grade reports due to the confusing placement of the “Subject Selection” dropdown. These areas were noted for future builds.
I believe that Strut Learning and eMojo can make a real difference in the E-Learning space. The teachers I interviewed mentioned either difficulty using existing platforms or having to use multiple online resources simultaneously. Strut can create an all-in-one, easy-to-use platform that effectively works towards improving EQ and SEL for students, making theirs the best product on the market.
In their closing statements, many of the participants liked the features we were introducing to EdTech; specifically, they liked the real-time adaptation to students' needs and the EQ development overview. This showed us that we were on the right track, and with further iteration we moved into the beta stage of development confident in our ability to provide both a usable and useful tool for teachers.
Designing a quick and easy way to schedule equidistant meetings at places everyone will like.
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Designing an enhanced approach to purchasing clothing online regardless of body types and sizes.
I'd love to help with your next project and I'm always available for a chat. If you have any questions or you'd like to get in touch, feel free to contact me.
