Student Navigation
Overview
Title
Cengage Navigation
Summary
Cengage Learning, an educational technology company, creates online learning platforms and wanted to simplify navigation for students when they are first enrolling in a course or registering a product.
Date
August 2018
Tools + Skills
User research, usability testing, student personas, wireframes, Sketch, InVision
Challenge
Students are currently navigating an overly complex and fractured network of different platforms and screens. Too many paths lead to failure and there is no obvious connection between the different platforms students are taken through when enrolling for the first time. There is also not a consistent nor streamlined log in experience.
Process
I set out to analyze the student workflow, identify the failed paths and make recommendations to simplify the registration process.
Define — Review of existing research, meet with internal stakeholders and team, survey external stakeholders, develop personas, conduct usability tests, perform heuristic analysis, map out student workflow, identify most detrimental paths and pain points, evaluate design and language of each screen.
After interviewing and reviewing the profiles of 21 students and instructors that work with Cengage products, I created two user personas: Abigail and Charles.
Then, I researched and tabulated the number of work flows and interactions a student could take (or fail to complete) in order to register a Cengage product for the first time. The work flow journey started at either the Learning Management System (Blackboard) or a microsite like Amazon and ended on Cengage with completed registration.
Each screen in the registration workflow was printed, evaluated for leakage and marked up with improved copy.
The most common 12 workflows were identified. Screens and interactions were counted assuming perfect navigation so these are minimum values.
With established screens and pathways in need of review, I conducted remote usability tests to groups of students.
Highlights:
80% study participants check and rely on their school’s Learning Management System daily
Students are skeptical, impatient & cost-conscious when approaching books/courses registration
Most students have no or little previous exposure to Cengage products
From here, I identified the greatest barriers and areas of confusion for getting to Cengage. I created detailed maps to capture the overwhelming and unproductive registration experience.
A map capturing the most common and detrimental paths in a student’s navigation. X’s indicate paths that students are susceptible to taking but end in failure. Red arrows indicate significant barriers for continuing on the correct path.
Problem: Students need a better understanding of how all platforms relate and exist within each other so that they can easily and efficiently move between them.
Explore — After identifying the problem, I established a severity scale for addressing the different manifestations of the overarching problem. This scale clarified the key needs and greatest impact for supporting student navigation. Based on these needs, I proposed solutions for a more integrated and comprehensive Cengage dashboard as well as an improved log-in workflow.
#1: Streamline student’s entrance into Cengage by bringing students into their main dashboard upon signing in and making the sign-in experiences consistent across platforms.
Current log-in experiences
Currently, when logging in from the Cengage website, students or instructors 1) find the icon, 2) put in their credentials, 3) get redirected to the website homepage, 4) find the account icon again, 5) click my dashboard.
Currently, when students enter a Cengage product from a Learning Management System (LMS), they have a log-in experience that is very different from coming from the website. Here, they jump over the Cengage main page or dashboard and are taken directly into a specific Cengage product.
Recommended log-in experience
Here, both LMS and Cengage login experiences are similar. Plus, they have fewer screens to step through. The LMS login takes you to the Dashboard rather than the direct product so that students can better understand how their book/course sits inside the Cengage ecosystem. The Cengage login goes directly to the dashboard without redirected the student to the main page again.
#2 Orient students once inside their Cengage account by designing a new dashboard that establishes the relationship between Cengage’s different platforms and content and consistently lands students on the “My Home” page upon entering from an external platform.
Dashboard QUICK SKETCHES
Mockups for a new dashboard (1 & 2).
Mockups for a new dashboard (3 & 4).
Mockups for a new dashboard (5).
Dashboard OPTION #1: “Tabified Dash”
Dashboard OPTION #2: “Spotified Dash”
Dashboard OPTION #3: “SIMPLified DASH”
The recommendations for the login experience aims to anticipate what the student or instructor is trying to do. The new dashboard aims to better orient students and establish the relationship between different Cengage products and courses they are enrolled in. These redesigns need further testing to see whether they actually improve and resolve navigation issues.
Approaching Resolution
Takeaway: Students are being asked to navigate an overwhelmingly complex and greatly fractured network of platforms and screens
Strategy: Strive for seamless integration, streamlined entry, and improved UX copy
Action steps: Continue user testing and design iterations based on design proposals.
Refine — Despite robust research, these new recommendations need to be tested by both instructors and students. Additionally, more research and better work can be done. The “would have done differently” for this project include 1) improved market/competitor research, 2) a more realistic setup for workflow analysis, 3) additional usability tests, and 4) the consideration more users/external stakeholders (teachers)