PlayTest

PlayTest is a learning platform designed to make learning fun by gamifying the experience. Our client, PlayTest pitched to us with a broad idea of the student learning platform for STEM students, which we broadened to an online learning tool for high school students to learn and engage with content and their peers in a fun and exciting way, while facilitating healthy competition and good study habits.

Competitive Analysis:

• Quizlet’s flashcards were memorization-based and lacked support for math and science classes
• Duolingo facilitates friendly competition and motivation through badges and rewards

Surveys:

After surveying 58 students, we found that students:

• strongly favored practice problems and accessibility
• high schoolers use learning games more than college students
• wanted a way to track their progress

User Interviews:

To get a more in-depth and personal insight into our users’ pain points and needs, we conducted 5 interviews via Zoom with high school students.

“A lot of subjects are more about application, as opposed to memorizing vocabulary words or recognizing structures.”

A key insight we discovered from our interviews was that students prefer application-based studying rather than memorization.

Using this insight, we wanted to focus on how we can distinguish PlayTest from other learning platforms, and accommodate different learning styles to encourage application-based learning.

To synthesize our research findings, we created an Affinity Map of key insights, writing down sticky notes of our findings, and then organizing them by categories of similarity.

For each category, we created an overarching “How might we” statement that had the potential to solve our questions.

Based on our research findings and affinity mapping, we further refined our “How Might We” statements into three main subjects to develop features for. These included:

1. How might we motivate students to study collaboratively?
2. How might we make flashcards more effective for different study needs and methods?
3. How might we encourage the application of material rather than just memorization?

These would then be encapsulated in our main How Might We Statement.

“How might we accommodate multiple types of learning in a collaborative and engaging way for students?”

Using our problem statement as an outline, we worked together to create a userflow of the product

To begin brainstorming potential solutions, each team member created sketches.

We then met internally discussing our solutions with one another, explaining our thinking and how it related back to the problem statement. After presenting these to our client, we were able to narrow down 3 core aspects to making PlayTest:

1. Working on flashcards collaboratively
2. A social aspect that allows students to easily collaborate and play with their classmates
3. Support for special notation like stem elements or diagrams into the flashcards

Due to the project's limited six-week duration, we narrowed down the scope of our project, focussing on the development of the home screens, notes to flashcard feature, and fill in the blank game feature. We then sketched out potential solutions to each focus.

After meeting with our client to share our thinking and get their feedback, we created mid-fidelity screens, adding a layer of visualization and fidelity that would further establish the product to our client.

To put our solutions to the test, we conducted a round of usability testing with our client, other designers, and most importantly, our target audience, high school students.

A major piece of feedback that helped enhance the homepage was turning it into a dashboard rather than a library of class folders.

We received confused reactions about the “Flashcards from Notes” feature with most users assuming that the feature was only for annotation/note-taking rather than a way to create flashcards.

During user testing, students noted that there was a lack of visual feedback when a task was complete, unsure where to click and what each button or action did.

“I don’t really know where to press first… It’s hard to tell what parts I’m done with and what part I’m on.”

Due to the six-week time constraint and being a remote team, we learned to focus on the core concept of the product to maximize efficiency.

The hardest part of this project was finding the perfect balance of adapting both client and user needs. Instead of creating multiple features to cater to each user’s needs, we adapted one feature to fit multiple needs.

Given more time, we would have liked to conduct a final round of user testing. This would have helped us learn whether or not our updated solutions from round 1 of user testing were successful.

A huge thank you to my team at Design Interactive: Jamie, Joanna, Michelle, and Rochelle. Lastly, thank you Katie and Sandra for allowing us to help bring their idea of PlayTest to life.