Interviewing professors at GaTech
Here’s the 1 minute TL;DR version
What did I do?
I led the creation of a desktop repository product under Mathworks designed to help college instructors create MATLAB assignment problems efficiently. The platform facilitates collaboration and communication among professors and incorporates marketplace functions for inspiration exchange.
Why was it done?
MathWorks aims to enhance users' experience in assignment creation and grading. Our user research revealed a recurring pain point expressed by users, primarily related to the assignment brainstorming process.
What did I learn?
I learned how to break a project deadlock by creatively gathering user feedback, showing stakeholders the value of what we present, and securing support for a user-driven design.
Scattered Resources
Integrity Issues about Assignment Reuse
Difficulty in Asking for Help or Opinions
Solutions we designed
Efficiently Organize, Adapt, and Publish Old Assignments
Professors have the option to either upload their existing assignment PDFs to the platform or create entirely new assignments using the editor. Then, they can publish their assignments to the Marketplace, sharing them with others and earning Points.
Point System for Accessing Other’s Assignments to Encourage Contributions
Professors have the option to either upload their existing assignment PDFs to the platform or create entirely new assignments using the editor. Then, they can publish their assignments to the Marketplace, sharing them with others and earning Points.
Research
Interview
Task Analysis
Market Research
Personas
Design
SCAMPER ideation
Wireframes
User feedback
Hi-fi Prototype
Evaluate
Usability Testing
Design Iterations
Semi-structured Interviews
5 interviews with Engineering Professors at GaTech
This allowed us to delve into the intricacies of creating assignments involving MATLAB, particularly considering the absence of a dedicated tool on the MATLAB platform for this purpose.
Holistic Approach
Besides, we also interviewed 4 teaching assistants, and 2 students to understand the problem comprehensively.
Two Brief Contextual Inquiries
This involved observing lab instructors in action as they navigated through the assignment creation process, providing additional layers of insight into their workflow and challenges.
Comprehending findings
Findings:
Instructors reuse whole or parts of previous assignments
Design Implications:
Allow users to import and modify existing assignments
Findings:
Instructors find it difficult to balance the difference in academic ability
Design Implications:
Categorize assignments by difficulty level, providing detailed info and past statistics
Findings:
Instructors look at other resources to create assignment problems
Design Implications:
Foster collaboration among instructors
Narrowing Our Problem Space
We learned that: Brainstorming is often the most time-consuming and common pain point.
New Focus:
Help professors quickly generate ideas for new assignments
Understanding the assignment creation process
We conducted a task analysis to break down the steps
Based on interviews, we broke down the complex assignment creation process into three main parts:
Brainstorming: Research and align with learning objectives.
Organizing: Leverage past resources, collaborate with others, and follow an iterative process.
Implementation: Combine all components effectively.
By analyzing the context around generating new assignment ideas, we identified product gaps and opportunities.
Are there existing products for the problem space?
Investigating our 3 competitors
We conducted a competitive analysis of Coassemble, Colab, and Zybooks to understand their approach to assignment creation, features, UI design, and market fit. By reviewing product walkthroughs, mission statements, target markets, and strategic levels, we identified strengths, weaknesses, and market gaps to inform our design decisions.
Coassemble
User-friendly with preset templates and AI quizzes
Colab
Collaborative coding environment
Zybooks
Focus on interactive content of assignment
Market Gap: There is no existing product that directly addresses the brainstorming side of assignment creation
Field
Dynamics and control
Assignment Format
starter MATLAB script
Teaching Style
Lisa wants to strike a balance between descriptiveness and creativity in her problems, ensuring that students are challenged while receiving guidance.
Key Goal
Create assignments that assess student’s conceptual understanding and critical thinking.
Pain Points
It is time-consuming and difficult to create new problems that cater to a wide range of academic abilities.
Coordinating and managing a variety of tools and software can be complex.
Field
Mechanical engineering
Assignment Format
Teaching Style
Mike uses traditional teaching methods. He is meticulous about the quality and consistency of assignments.
Key Goal
Mike uses traditional teaching methods. He is meticulous about the quality and consistency of assignments.
Pain Points
The assignment creation process lacks automation, leading to repetitive manual work and inefficiencies.
He uses past assignments a lot but It’s hard to tell if a student cheated
Idea 1: Collaborative platform
Professors will have access to a forum and in-app messaging. The forum has different sub-topics for professors to post their questions in. In-app messaging feature is for professors to send direct messages to each other to help brainstorm new ideas and ask for help.
Idea 2: Assignment Repository
A digital repository assignment marketplace, where users can categorize their assignments, upload their assignments, receive in-app currency, and use this to purchase other user’s assignments
Sketch ideas
Collaborative Design Exploration
We each sketched out a rough drawing of what they imagined the application to look like, including layout, features, and design. We then discussed it as a team to determine features and layouts that we felt best fulfilled the design requirements.
users
x2
HCI expert sessions
user
x1
MathWorks Product Team
Things we reconsidered
The in-app points system was not obvious and intuitive
Although both participants stated that they liked the concept and felt that it was a good incentive for them to contribute, both expressed initial confusion as they did not understand how to earn, spend and check on their points.
times
Old
Solution: Better design and an onboarding flow
We color coded the points and created a brief onboarding flow to explain how to earn points, what they are used for, and how to locate your current point balance.
check
New
times
Old
Professors want to know the difficulty level of the assignment in the marketplace
More details about an assignment should be provided to help users make the decision
check
New
Solution: Provide statistical information
Provide valuable statistical insights such as average student performance to help make informed decisions when purchasing assignments.
How to ensure fresh content?
Without a mechanism to encourage regular updates, the content may become stale and less engaging
Solution: Content Renewal Strategy
Implementing content expiration to encourage the creation of fresh content and ongoing discussions, ensuring a dynamic platform.
laptop
x2
Cognitive Walkthrough
user
x1
Heuristic Evaluation
Phase 2
tasks
x4
Task-based usability tests
Users love the design
All participants were able to complete both tasks efficiently.
Participants had a good understanding of the functionality of the platform and liked the idea and concept.
Users find the product intuitive and useful
At the end of each usability test, we used the **Desirability Test** by providing participants with a word list to describe their experience. The most frequently chosen words were *intuitive*, *useful*, *clean*, and *desirable*.
My highlights
Handling Ambiguous Requirements
Initially we were given a broad goal: to create a GUI for instructors using MATLAB/Simulink for assignments. I led the process of clarifying and focusing the project scope.
I scheduled the meeting with stakeholders to discuss the timeline, budget, technical constraints, and instructors' current workflows. I then collaborated with researchers on exploratory research—conducting interviews, task analysis, market research, and competitive analysis. We identified key pain points in assignment creation and narrowed our focus to brainstorming
Leading Team through Stalemate and Getting Stakeholder Buy-In
During wireframing, our stakeholder questioned the reward system’s usability and suggested removing it. Midterms made it hard to reach professors, and some teammates preferred following the stakeholder’s view without further validation. I took the initiative to break the deadlock by emphasizing user-centered design and reframing our approach to get quick feedback from professors via a simple email. Most professors liked the idea and shared useful suggestions. I led the collection and analysis of their feedback, creating visual insights that impressed the stakeholders and secured their support for a user-aligned design.
Small deeds, big love, lasting impact!
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