Desktop - UX/UI design

Redesigning The Live Lessons Page

The Donovan's Venom is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing music education to children through its website, The Piano Room. I collaborated with a team of two senior designers, a product manager, and engineers to revamp the Lesson’s page, including the Live Lessons feature. This page provides high-quality music education through interactive resources: e-books for practice, video lessons for on-demand learning, and live sessions for personalized instruction. These tools aim to help students improve their reading and math skills. The new website is scheduled to launch by the end of 2024.

The Problem:

Students face significant barriers accessing the Live Lessons page, as they must leave the platform to join sessions on YouTube without clear instructions. This extra step creates confusion, especially for those without YouTube accounts. It also prevents instructors from effectively tracking student participation. Additionally, instructors lack sufficient feedback to evaluate whether students are engaging with and understanding the material, limiting their ability to provide targeted support.

The Team

Two lead Designers, one Product Manager, Engineering

My role

UX/UI Designer

Duration

July - September 2024

The Research

Looking deeper into other learning platforms:

When I joined the design team, we needed more user data that was not available, so learning from other platforms became crucial.

By conducting a competitive audit with various direct and indirect competitors, We learned the following:

  • Live lessons should be interactive, allowing users to comment, ask questions, and react to the instructor.

  • Having interactive, fun components and striking visuals makes it easier for our target audience to feel connected.

  • Create a dashboard-like interface to facilitate easy addition of new material without requiring users to scroll extensively to find what they need.

  • Gamification of learning makes the experience more engaging for a younger audience.

User Interview

I also conducted an interview with the instructor, which provided valuable insights to identify features that could enhance student engagement and interaction during live sessions.

I learned the following from the user interview:

  • Live lessons should be interactive, enabling participants to comment, share ideas, ask questions, and engage with the instructor in real-time.

  • Introducing a feature that allows students to respond to questions using multiple-choice options will encourage individual answers and reduce the likelihood of students copying each other.

The Goal:

Design a Live Session page that enables students to join and participate in real-time sessions. This feature aims to enhance their educational experience by fostering real-time interaction with instructors and fellow students, creating a more engaging and collaborative learning environment. 

The Live Lessons page should include the following:

  • The ability to exchange messages / Chat

  • A way to send Reactions / Emojis

  • The ability to Know who is connected

  • a way for students to get individually assess: Polls / Quizzes

Ideating

Bringing data and Ideas together

First Iteration:

I led the design process, starting with drafting early wireframes, which I used to gather feedback from other designers and key stakeholders involved in the project.

Second Iteration:

For the second iteration, I started adding different features, such as Comments, Polls, and Reactions.

Final Desing

Prototype

After a meeting with the product team, product manager, and owner, we determined that the design was ready for testing. I proceeded to create a functional prototype to collect actionable user feedback and validate the design decisions.

Retrospective

  • Working and contributing to the design system was an excellent way to learn how to create consistency throughout my designs.

  • Preparing and leading meetings with other senior designers gave me confidence in my decisions and allowed us to exchange ideas more productively.

  • When data is limited, competitive analysis and best practices can be valuable tools for developing products that meet users' needs.

What’s Next?

The website will be launched by the end of 2024. User satisfaction will determine areas for improvement and future iterations.