Revamp Otava Learning
Otava Learning was searching for a new service concept for teachers to stay competitive in the Finnish publishing industry. The proposed solution involves a new AI-powered service that will deliver personalized educational materials based on licensed books.
Scope:
IDBM Industry Project
Duration:
6 months (2022-2023)
Role:
UX Designer in a team of four
Client:
Otava Learning
Tools:
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
OVERVIEW
The goal
Otava Learning (OL) is on a mission to become a major player in publishing industry. Due to the ubiquity of digital learning in high schools, the company seeks potentials in service-centric and digital-oriented products to add values for their business. Thus, the design team was challenged to create new user-centric services targeting high school teachers.
The design questions
How can OL become more service-centric in its operations at high school level?
- In which ways might we make high school teachers’ journey more engaging?
- Which services bring the most value to high school teachers?
The solution
We proposed AINA as a tool that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized teaching materials. AINA simplifies the process of developing teaching content, lessens the workload, and enhances the engagement of educational materials. The tool could be trained using Otava Learning's database to generate countless reliable materials based on the books for which schools have purchased licenses.
RESEARCH
What do we know about publishing industry?
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Benchmarking
Benchmarking existing solutions described by Otava Learning’s competitors is crucial at this stage to understand what works and what might not work. Thus, we want to investigate how three other companies, Studeo, Sanoma Pro and E-Oppi, are tackling the identified challenges.
Customer journey map
High school teachers are the key stakeholders in this project. They decide on the publisher to purchase the educational materials. Based on assumptions, we drafted the initial user journey which would then be studied via ethnographic research.
Ethnographic research
Using the customer journey map as a prop to investigate teachers’ purchase behaviour with Otava Learning, we interviewed 8 high school teachers mostly working in the Uusimaa region and received 9 responses from the open-ended survey. Thematic analysis was implemented to reveal the top 3 high-level themes.
A.TEACHERS' ROLE AS A SUPPORTER FOR LEARNING
B. TEACHERS’ ROLE AS OTAVA LEARNING’S END-USERS/CUSTOMERS
C. OTAVA LEARNING’S PRODUCTS
Journey mapping
Awareness
“I know Otava’s products because previous teachers have used them and liked them. I get information about the products from Otava’s email lists and sales events.”
2. Consideration
“Usually I can find everything I need to know from Otava’s website and the sample materials that have been provided for me.”
3. Decision
“I really do not have the need to interact with the publisher at this stage.”
4. Use
“Because textbooks do not offer me everything that our students of different level would require, I spend a lot of time creating extra material, which is time-consuming and frustrating.”
5. Satisfaction
“Live events are a perfect environment for bringing us together around educational material and connecting with other colleagues. I get tips and contacts and we get to exchange thoughts and experiences about Otava’s materials and teaching in general.”
Insights
We have found that the most significant and recurrent pain points during teachers’ customer journey take place during the so-called "Use” phase of the customer journey. These frustrations are related to teachers’ dual role as a supporter for learning as well as the end-user of Otava Learning’s materials. Thus, we decided to take our project further by narrowing down our findings and focusing on finding pain relievers and value creators for the following challenges that teachers experience during their work.
1.
Materials are not customized to different skill levels
2.
Materials are not engaging enough
3.
Insecurity among new teachers from the lack of experience
Personas*
Aamu
A newly graduated teacher who is very eager to start their journey as a history teacher, but is uncertain how to plan the courses and lectures.
Needs
Course scheduling
Lesson planning
Aamu uses AINA to help them create a lesson plan for the History 1 course based on the Forum 1 book. They want to create a schedule on how to divide the topics from the book into different lessons throughout the course.
They can use AINA to create a high-level schedule plan from the book Forum 1 divided into 14 lessons. Based on this high-level schedule plan, Aamu uses AINA to create individual lesson plans from the schedule. In the lesson plans, Aamu wants to include a detailed schedule with time stamps, a summary of the theme, some exercises, and a fun story to start the lesson.
After receiving the lesson plans from AINA, Aamu feels more confident in starting their teaching journey. With this time saved in making the schedule and lesson plans, Aamu feels more relaxed and can focus on planning some activities that will bring out their personality as a teacher.
Ilta
Language teacher with students who are at very different levels in their learning journeys.
Needs
Materials that support different skill levels
Differentiated exercises
Ilta uses AINA because they want to ensure that every student has an equal opportunity to master the Swedish and English languages no matter what level they are currently at.
Ilta asks AINA to create two types of new Swedish exercises based on the Fokus book that they already have a license. They want that the first exercises are easy with plain language and the second ones should be difficult with advanced vocabulary. These exercises are intended for students who are barely passing the course and for students who are aiming for the best possible grades in their matriculation examinations.
After receiving the differentiated exercises Ilta feels that AINA is a great supporter for successfully managing a classroom full of students who are at very different levels in their learning journeys.
Kuura
Skilled social studies teacher with decades of experience looking for new ways to hold the classroom's attention.
Needs
Engaging exercises
Lesson planning
Kuura uses AINA to make materials that help to keep students engaged during lessons. For their next social studies lecture, they want to create unique exercises, in order to get the students away from their phones and focused on learning.
They turn to AINA for inspiration to create the exercises. First, they ask AINA for a summary of current news articles which are relevant to the topics of their lecture. Secondly, they ask AINA to generate exercises based on the relevant news and the chapters of the social studies book they are currently studying with their class.
After receiving the exercise ideas from AINA, Kuura feels inspired for their next lesson. AINA helps Kuura to find new ways to engage and excite the students. Now they no longer need to struggle to keep the students' attention.
* Illustrations by upklyak
IDEATION
How might we make the teachers’ lives great again?
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The chosen one
The insights from the research led us to different ideas for the development. The brainstorming sessions helped us to generate three main ideas that were the most feasible to develop. Eventually, considering values captured, innovation, feasibility and competitive advantages, we successfully narrowed the narratives down to the one solution: OTAVA-AI which was later branded as AINA which is integrated into the current Otava Learning platform as an additional service.
PROTOTYPING
How do we showcase the solution in action?
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Information architecture
In designing the information architecture for AINA, the goal was to create a structure that allows teachers to easily navigate and access the platform's features while ensuring a seamless user experience. The information architecture is designed to support in creating materials efficiently, ensuring differentiation in skill levels, and creating engaging content.
Wireframes
THE SOLUTION
AINA is integrated into the teacher’s dashboard
Creating lesson plans
AINA's core feature includes customizable lesson plan creation for teachers. Beginners can follow a guided path, while advanced users can utilize free-form prompts. The feature supports the addition of exercises, interactive materials, quizzes, summaries, presentations, and projects for comprehensive lesson planning.
Creating exercises
AINA's exercise creation feature automates the process, saving time and ensuring personalized, engaging experiences for students. This tool updates exercises, considering varying skill levels, and allows users to follow a guided path or use free-form prompts.
Sharing and saving results
AINA's content generation features a streamlined, chat-style interface with key functions such as Regenerate, Save, Share, and Rate placed below the chat window. This allows for effortless content customization, enabling users to modify, save, and share outputs with ease, driving engagement and ensuring efficient task completion.
USER TESTING
What do actual users think?
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AINA underwent a thorough evaluation by two experienced representing diverse subjects and grade levels. Their expertise provided invaluable insights into the platform's effectiveness from an instructional perspective.
AINA dashboard
Teachers were confused about the six different features on the dashboard in the first prototype. The final dashboard was modified accordingly to meet teachers’ needs when using AINA to create teaching materials.
Before
After
AINA menu bar
After the user tests, AINA menu bar was added to optimize users' navigation between different tasks. The insights collected from user tests helped us empathize more with the users path when interacting with AINA. In addition to access to history conversations with AINA and saved documents, the ability to access academic calendar or schedule was considered to be relevant for schedule planning.
KEY LEARNINGS
What have I learned?
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I believed that this project was the ideal opportunity for myself to grow as a UX designer. I was prepared to take on the challenge with confidence and enthusiasm. Though our confidence fluctuated, our enthusiasm remained strong throughout the entire project as we gained more knowledge about the company, the educational publishing industry, and each other. Ultimately, we feel that we successfully addressed the complex design problem and we are proud of the work we accomplished over the past seven months.
As the person in charge of the UX design for AINA, I have significantly improved my prototyping skills. I've learned…
that starting wire-framing as soon as possible, even if the ideas are not fully developed, is essential.
the importance of quickly conducting user tests with low-fidelity prototypes to validate usability, especially due to time constraints.
that implementing a new solution involves many moving parts, and current circumstances may affect the adoption of AINA. If that happens, we want to stress that the project was not just about delivering a final product.
design thinking is a powerful tool that unleashes great potential and leads to transformative outcomes.