Easenglish
(An innovative new platform for learning English online)
Role
Ux Designer
Scope
5 Weeks
Tools
Figma
Overview
Easenglish is an innovative online platform for learning English, it places the student in a multicultural context where he or she has the opportunity to relate not only with the teacher but also with students from all over the world.
This is a product under construction, nevertheless, the Brand Identity ( logo, color palette, typography, etc. ), part of the company policy and the points on which the business strategy revolves, has been defined.
The platform aims to prepare the student for any kind of goal in the shortest possible time, we believe that a friendly and familiar environment incentivizes students to get involved, hence the idea of a product where interaction between users is something of great importance to create more opportunities for interaction in English and thus faster learning.
In this first phase I created the brand identity, a first idea of the hero section of the homepage, the log in process, and the dashboard where the main functionality of the product was developed. You will then be able to see the first 5 pages of the dashboard in the prototyping.
Problem statement & Survey
The first problem encountered was the enormous competition in the industry, so how to make our product unique. Although each online school comes to the market with its own character distinguished from the others, the services in platforms that offer language conversation classes basically deliver a product that differs little from one another. Therefore, I needed to understand what would set the new platform apart from the others. Therefore, I decided to do a survey of students who had taken a private course with my client ( an English teacher with several years of experience). I asked them a series of questions regarding the platform they were part of and left including:
Age group
On what platform they had experienced.
What was valued most in the platform they were part of.
What was least appreciated in the previous platform.
Level of satisfaction with the navigation of the platform.
This survey allowed me to allocate people into groups and create my user personas. I, therefore, worked together with my client to create solutions that would make our product unique from the competition, based on the survey responses.
Identification User Personas
Alessandro D' Agostino - Primary school student
Age: 7 y.o.
Description
Alexander is an elementary school child. Among other subjects, he studies English but for too few hours per week. The parents would like the child to have a good foundation in the second language as well, implementing the hours of study of the subject per week.
Needs
Alexander and his parents have found online platforms to be a good remedy for learning English, however, they would like an easier, more dynamic, and friendly solution.
Beatriz González - High school student
Age: 18 y.o.
Description
Beatriz is a senior in high school. She has a good foundation of English and would like to move and find work abroad. She enjoys learning about new cultures and loves learning dynamically and in social settings.
Needs
She wants to improve her English skills from a native speaker, but in a more engaging and dynamic way from the solutions so far found online. She would like to be able to test her communication skills by talking to other students from other countries.
Élise Martin - Employee
Age: 26 y.o.
Description
Élise works in a marketing agency in Lyon ( France). The job, however, is uninspiring and lacks opportunities for growth furthermore, the pay barely covers half of the monthly expenses. She has a good command of English and is considering moving abroad as the prospects for growth are better.
Needs
Élise needs to improve her communication skills in English in the work environment. Working 8/ 9 hours a day, she would like to find an online solution that allows her to learn from native speakers but in a friendly and relaxed context.
Giulio Barbero - Pensioner
Age: 70 y.o.
Description
Giulio is an elderly man who has been retired for a few years. He loves traveling to weights around the world and discovering new cultures, unfortunately he rarely gets to communicate with the locals. He has always wanted to learn English but work and family life have left little time.
Needs
He would like to find a convenient ( online ) solution that allows him not only to learn English finally but also to relate to other cultures.
Product Branding
After defining my user persona I had a better idea of the type of user I was referring to. This was essential to have a clearer idea of the brand identity. However, this was not enough, so I carried out an analysis of the competitors that most closely matched the idea of our product.
The lines for building the new brand followed these characteristics: modern, simple, trust, growth, adaptability, and consistency.
From the study of competitors and the guidelines provided by the client, I was able to define the graphic identity of the brand and create a logo that reflected the company's values. The client had expressed a desire to include something in the logo that would lead back to a tree, as a symbol of the company values that they want to be conveyed. Below is the latest version of the logo and a mood board defined for the product.
Design Process
For the design of this first part of the platform ( hero-section, log-in process and dashboard) I started from the identification of my user personas through a short survey carried out to my client's students ( people not fully satisfied with existing online services), and then carried out as significant a study of competitors and wireframing development in which several tests were carried out to obtain a first version of the dashboard. Thanks to prototyping, I was finally able to get very good feedback in the user testing.
Site Map
Sketches
Reviews
Usability Testing
Although the project is only at an early stage of development, I thought it would be interesting to gather feedback from people who were closest ( in age group, experience, and satisfaction) to my user persona. The following are the tasks they were asked to perform.
Log In
Navigate the first 5 pages of the dashboard.
I wanted to let the participants know that this was not a test but rather a session where they could express their ideas and opinions about this new product. From this test I was able to get feedback that allowed me to understand the effectiveness of the brand identity, the navigation quality of the dashboard, and other information that led me to the latest version of the product.
Feedbacks
Positive feedback included the idea of the dashboard as a page that gives space for platform members to learn about other cultures, while some feedback was about the need to have the dashboard sidebar “contrast more” with the content of the page. I put together all the ideas from user testing and then created a second version, again comparing myself with the work of other designers.
Final Version
Prototype
Final Reflecting
To realize this first version of the project, several steps and processes followed, studies of competitors, analysis of the structures of other software providing the same type of services. Being a very competitive industry, it was necessary to spend a lot of time in devising points that would make the product unique. A lot was learned from platforms already on the web, but certainly knowledge of the back-end aspects in programming helped a lot to better understand the structure that the software should take. The part that most distinguishes our product (community) is in the ideation phase, in the following months a version of this page will be implemented as well. This is not necessarily the final version of the product, although the brand identity and general structure of the dashboard will be maintained. Alternative versions of the dashboard will be proposed, in a way that offers several viable solutions in user testing and leaves the decision of which one is best to use to the people who participate. Following this procedure will continue in the construction of each part of the platform, until we have a finished, original and competitive product to offer in the market.