SOLVING FOR GOALS THROUGH UX

GOAL 1: Increase Resource Pool

To build their beta site and test their framework, the creators of Mt. Cleverest’s originally relied on wikipedia articles to populate its resource pool. The majority of the teachers we spoke to in interviews and usability tests were wary of using wikipedia as a source for educational content, causing them to question Mt. Cleverest’s credibility. In order to reach its peak ⛰️ potential, Mt. Cleverest needs to be populated with reputable content. How might we encourage early-stage users to contribute sources and content they trust?

UX Quick Win 1: add a distinct Add Resource CTA

Why? In our usability tests of the current website, the majority of users didn’t realize that the search bar had two functions:

1. traditional search

2. add content to Mt. Cleverest

Separating the add function allowed the search bar to be consistent with user expectations and created a clear path for users to bring in additional content.

UX Quick Win 2: Shift Mt. Cleverest’s messaging away from AI and towards building a community-driven platform.

Why? Mt. Cleverest’s original messaging describes a the product as a textbook “built by robots.” While the cutting-edge technology may inspire initial curiosity and exploration, it fails to solve the problems uncovered in our research. Shifting the messaging towards building a community of educators and learners clarifies the value of the platform and begins the process of differentiation from competitors like Quizlet, Kahoot! and Khan Academy.

GOAL 2: Encourage User Loyalty

It may sound obvious, but the most important aspect of a community driven website is… the community behind it. How might we encourage users to invest time and resources into Mt. Cleverest to help build its growth and success?

To answer this question I turned to insights from heuristic evaluation. What can be improved within the website’s UX to encourage users to return? The answer was threefold: improve findability, clarity and credibility.

Findability

Beyond their mistrust of wikipedia articles, users consistently had difficulty finding content relevant to their specific needs. Key issues included:

• Resources were originally displayed in a list format without any form of taxonomy or sorting.

• There were no filters available to sort resources; users had to rely on search to bring up relevant results.

• Search function brings up results with exact terms only; no keyword matches or recommendations available

UX solution 1: Establish a library page where materials are sorted and categorized and can be filtered based on the user’s needs.

Why? The library has multiple positive ramifications for the user. It gives them the opportunity to have a high-level view of the wide variety of subjects, grade levels and materials available for their use and makes navigating these resources easy and intuitive. The library is accessible from the main navigation once the user has logged into their Mt. Cleverest account.

UX solution 2: Restructure search results and allow options for sorting and filtering.

Why? Enable users to have a high-level view of available content through a search function that behaves similarly to the web’s most popular search engines. Add further clarity by showing social ranking, number of questions created and contributors.

Clarity

While users were able to create and assign quizzes without any major issues, the majority of users either failed to notice additional features and intricacies or didn’t understand how to make the greatest use of available features. Major areas of confusion included:

• creating questions vs creating a quiz

• upvotes and downvotes and their relationship to quiz creation

• previewing quiz content

UX Solution 1: redesign the question page and revamp copy to make user actions & consequences more apparent. In order to achieve this, I explored two different variations of the question page.

First variation: question ticker + tool tips

Pros:

• simpler page interface

• tool tips react dynamically to user behavior

• opportunity for surprise and delight

Cons:

• reminds users of Microsoft’s Clippy 📎, who was killed off for a reason…

• users may choose to ignore tool tips and remain confused

• opportunity for surprise and disdain

Second variation: split screen with question creation overlay

Pros:

• ability to look at resource and create questions without needing to open another tab or window

• draws an immediate and obvious connection between questions and source material

• easier to reference material and double check work

Cons:

• works best on desktop; smaller devices require a different solution