TestMe! Case Study
Background
College students felt unsupported previous to exam or assessment periods, neither the mobile application, website or classes offered non-marked practice exercises or instances to test students knowledge/performance. Furthermore, the University Mobile application is commonly used to display information such as calendar or news, and for the rest it re-directs users to Blackboard (module page) or Microsoft Teams.
In addition, most students reported to face these examination periods being nervous and anxious, without full confidence about their knowledge no matter how much they have studied.
Role
Student solo project for Service Design/MSc Human-Computer Interaction
Project
Research, Medium-fidelity Prototypes, Usability Test and Data Analysis
Timeline
12 weeks
problem
College students feel a lack of support previous to exam periods
As a college student myself, I started to notice a lack of support previous to exam and assessments periods, there was no practice instances where students could test their knowledge/performance in a specific module without being marked. After conducting focus group and individual semi-structured interviews with students at the university of Leicester, I found out that this hypothesis of a problem was actually a shared necessity among them.
Students mentioned how they would like to have an opportunity to test their knowledge about a subject without being marked and as a practice exercise, in an easy way and when they consider suitable. Most of them also said they felt very anxious before exam periods and they believed that practice instances could reduce this anxiety.
SOLUTION
TestMe! Mobile App
Take tests anytime
Homepage shows an overall score out of 100% (all correct answers)
It recommends to take practice tests based on upcoming exams, otherwise a module can be selected.
After a primary test is taken, it suggests to take more “personalised” tests based on weak topics and it also suggest lectures to improve.
Simple to use
Simple format, multiple choice and true or false.
It test the overall knowledge about a module, no complex exercises.
Instant feedback.
Learn as you go
It offers a subject breakdown so the users can know in which subject they need to improve.
A short explanation of each Q&A can be displayed, also showing if it was answered correctly or not.
It suggest to keep taking tests right away
Feel supported
Learn about the learning progress since first practice test until today.
Accountability is the key, access to exams calendar with extra information.
Activate push notifications with exam and practice tests reminders.
research
Understanding and identifying the user needs
Focus Group + User semi-structured interviews
The purpose of this project was to create a product that could enhance and support the user experience of students in higher education. As a Master’s student myself, I was able to recruit 6 college students to participate in a focus group session with open-ended questions, hoping them to open up and identify pain points or struggles in the different course processes. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the 6 students individually to dig deeper into their needs and preferences.
Affinity map (abridged)
Finding patterns
After writing down any relevant comment, insight or reflexion, six categories were created, and reduced to three final “themes” being “Lack of support”, “Technical Constraints” and “Motivation”.
insights
Students felt there is a lack of support in digital and remote tools to optimise their study time
Student highlighted how unsupported they felt outside class hours. With mostly online classes, reliability and a smooth user experience through digital platforms is a “must” for them. Current University website or mobile application doesn’t offer any practice instance, and recorded sessions are often not available for everyone due to system errors. At the same time, they shared the struggle when using the mobile application because is doesn’t offer a smooth user experience and features are not clear enough.
With busy routines and reduced time, they expressed the need to take advantage of every free minute even when they are commuting to university, work or other activities. Instead of sending an email and waiting days to obtain an answer about a topic, they would like to get a quick response that allows them to continue learning and test their knowledge.
research question
“How can we help students to feel more supported and confident about
their knowledge through a user-friendly digital platform?”
target & user personas
Who is the target audience?
The target audience is formed by higher education students and young professionals, from 18 to 40 years old, who need to optimise their free time in order to study, practice and test their knowledge in a way that suits their busy schedules and rhythms. They usually don’t spend much time at home, therefore they need to be able to study from anywhere and within an easy format.
full scale task scenarios
design
Initial Ideas + Low-fidelity Sketches
The idea was to create a mobile application in which students can take personalised sets of tests generated based on their individual weaknesses and strengths. The intelligent personalised online support uses AI to generate the questions based on the program and exam papers that professors need to upload. Then, the system creates a primary test with general questions, after students take the primary test, the system creates further tests with a customised sequence of questions based on the correct or incorrect answers from the user, and it associates and learns from previous sequences of questions made to other students that led them to improvement.
The feasibility of this project was discussed with software engineers, resulting as a feasible project for a big institution like Leicester University which can have the appropriate budget and timeframe for its development.
Medium-fidelity prototypes
The main purposes for this design was to show how easy is to access and complete the practice tests, apart from offering instant feedback so the user can quickly learn from their mistakes. One of the most important requirement of our personas, was to be able to complete test easily, anytime and anywhere. With this simple format, having multiple choice and true/false format, users are able to optimise their free time and take tests while they are commuting or any other time without having to be seated with a computer or with pen and paper. Furthermore, they can display the results after they finish, seeing in detail where they have succeeded or failed, and access to the suggested lecture to reinforce the knowledge without wasting time looking for the correct material.
