Foundational Research.

To begin I took a white paper deep dive into The Third Teacher, a novel focused on how design can transform teaching & learning. It was important for me to learn more about the negative aspects of student life in order to better identify solutions on how educators can become more aware of them. While researching, I came across the question of, ‘what factors create a great learning environment?’ So I began brainstorming…

Factors Defined:

Community

Accessible Design

Activities

Color

Light

Equipment

Use Cases:

Competitive Analysis:

I analyzed the three frequented websites that focused on educator connections. I found that two of them mainly focused on parent to teacher communication, while the other focused on professional development. I wondered how I could essentially combine these ideas with an emphasis on the educators & research.

Goals Established:

1. To create a place where educators can connect & learn from one another.

2. To provide an outlet for informative research & learning.

3. A place to discover & create community projects.

Personas (developed from goals):

User Flow & IA:

Ideation:

Ideation:

Low-Fidelity Prototype:

Study:

A short 10-minute unmoderated study happened between a middle school teacher, a college student assigned as a TA in their upcoming semester, and 3 post-graduate college students. After the study with the low-fidelity prototype, these were the main findings to improve upon:

1. Condensed Navigation

   • Wished the navigation bar could collapse. 

     
     

2. Featured Articles

   • Wished to have multiple featured articles instead of just one on the homepage. 

     
     

3. Profile Personalization

   • Wished your own posts could be viewed on your profile.

Insights developed:

1. Users need a way to access additional articles from the homepage.

2. Users need additional features to enhance and create a better profile.

3. Users need an additional form of identification to ensure security within the app.

4. Users need a way to narrow down article suggestions to fit their research goals more efficiently.

5. Users need a way to highlight & note sections of an article they want to revisit.

Design.

Style Guide:

Deliverable:

Educational Social Platform

Timeline:

5 Weeks

Role:

UX Designer

Tools:

Figma & Adobe XD

*Iterations were focused on a homepage that balanced the social & informative aspects of the platform

Educational Social Space

The homepage consists of a featured articles about topics related to education and its spaces in addition to recent activity of people & topics you follow.

VeRIFY #2

Reflection:

This case study was inspired by a book I read in college, The Third Teacher, cited at the top. I remember after reading it I felt inspired to learn more about interactions within a space and how it affects those around it. So, jumping into this project I immediately thought about that goal but tried to condense it into one learning space. While creating Carmine, I really wanted to focus on how the informative aspect could coincide with the social aspect! Which blossomed into my biggest challenge which was, when you have a goal of creating an app or website to be used for multiple purposes, it really is important to test many designs to help find the most accessible option.

What does carmine help solve?

It allows educators access, in a social format, to information surrounding educational growth within the community and around the world.