UTP

Overview

UTP, a major private university serving over 70,000 students, was looking to increase student satisfaction with their self-paced online courses. To tackle this challenge, I co-led an eight-person team combining designers from La Victoria Lab, IDEO and UTP itself.

We conducted research with students and teachers to uncover opportunities for improving the existing offering. This deep dive informed our vision for an enhanced online learning experience. Finally, we built prototypes and ran multiple experiments across a term to measure the effectiveness of our designs.
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Results:

34% increase in student satisfaction with the newly designed experience. In the control groups, 17% rated it 10/10, while in the experimental groups, 51% gave it the highest rating.
Senior stakeholder alignment on the vision for the online programme, unlocking investment.
Improvement in student engagement with the new learning content.

Students’ involvement and their comments have improved. The quality of their answers is different when compared to previous terms - Teacher participating in the experiment

Solution: a new asynchronous course experience

After synthesizing the user research, we defined opportunity areas across the student journey. We used these as the foundation to design an ideal online learning experience.

Pre-enrolment sneak peek

Through user research, we found students lacked clarity on what to expect when enrolling in a course. This touchpoint enables them to see mutual friends already enrolled or who have taken the course. Additionally, they can view the workload alongside their other courses and access basic course information, such as who the lecturer is and type of content they'll be engaging with.

Student profiles

Once enroled on a course, students can view information about their peers' major, interests, availability, and affinity. This was inspired on workaround students currently use to find project groups:

To form groups, I usually ask on the class WhatsApp group who is studying the same major as me. It would be useful to have that information at hand - UTP student

Project group hub

The platform allows students to access their project groups. Each group has their own space, where students can review agreed-upon norms and processes for collaboration. They can view each other's schedules and earn points by completing tasks like submitting assignments on time.

Learning cycle

Together with our learning experience designer, pedagogical advisors and UTP's academic team, we adapted a framework for designing effective and engaging learning experiences. At a very high-level, the learning cycle consists of students experiencing something new, exploring it, receiving feedback, and processing what they have learned through reflection.

Progress tracker

Our research revealed that due to varying circumstances, students sometimes fall behind in courses with little awareness of how it impacts their overall term progress. We leveraged the behavioral nudge of social proof by designing a way to allow students to compare their progress against their class. It also provides mechanisms for them to reach out to peers for assistance if needed.

Dynamic forums

Redesigned forums now facilitate efficient way-finding, enabling students to locate answers to their inquiries, thus avoiding them from posting questions that may have already been addressed. Additionally, these forums empower teachers to provide responses through alternative media formats, including screen recordings and voice messages.

Virtual coffee chats

The impersonal nature of asynchronous courses can drive disengagement. To address this, we introduced virtual coffee sessions – video call discussions on course topics that allow students to interact with peers and/or instructors, fostering a more personal and interactive learning environment.

Credits

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

maria paula loayza
kevin armstrong

product design

KEVIN ARMSTRONG
MALU ROMERO
SANTIAGO SOTOCA

tech lead

christian bedón

operations

JACQUELINE SOLARI
ESTEFANíA RODRIGUEZ

UTP

Increasing satisfaction among university students enroled in asynchronous online courses